In my Wildest Dreams

Greetings friends!

I know I say this every time but it really has been a busy couple of weeks...

I am moving to New York!!!

As part of my degree in Exeter, I have the option to do a Professional Training Year (PTY). This is a year conducting research with an established medical research group anywhere in the world. The trouble with this, as amazing as it sounds, is that you have to find your own placement with no help offered by the university itself. Let me tell you, finding a placement is not an easy task and if you have a fear of rejection, it is not for you.

A friend of mine sent out over 30 emails before securing a placement, and others had similar experiences only to end up with two offers at once! (Placements are like buses, I guess?)

I had a different experience. I found a Doctor at Columbia University in Manhattan who has spent his life in medical research and even opened the institute at Columbia that he now works in. The research he is currently doing is surrounding Alzheimer's disease, a topic that peaked my interest at around age 15 and led me to do my own research. In fact, it was the research project I conducted during my A levels on Alzheimer's that got me into Exeter and provided me with some of the basic skills I needed to do a research-based degree.

So I sent this doctor an email, on a whim. It wasn't because I thought he would be jumping at the chance to have keen undergraduates in his lab, and I figured he probably got a hundred emails a day from students just like me asking for the same opportunities. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I was shocked to tears when I received a reply almost instantly offering me a place in the lab with him for the year.

There's a feeling a pure elation when hard work pays off, that I have only ever felt one other time: when I got my email from Exeter on result's day confirming my place at the university. I am beyond grateful for this opportunity, and I am aware that so few students can obtain them at such an early stage in their degree education, particularly with such a prestigious group. All that's left to do is hand in the paperwork and fill out my visa application and I'll be off to NYC in the summer!

Aside from that, health-wise I would love to write that I am doing much better. Honestly, as the term progresses and we get busier and busier I just feel more and more exhausted. The trouble with fatigue is, you can't distinguish between what is "normal" tiredness as a result of a busy day or a lot of work and what is "chronic" tiredness as a result of being unwell. This, of course, not helped by the cold I caught... (I knew it was coming for me when the second round of illness swept through the flat).

I had repeated bloods last week, for which I received the results this week that told me I am still iron deficient (sad faces all round). This is a confusing result, as pre-glandular fever I did not have this problem (to the best of my knowledge) and is something I would expect to have been straightened out by this time. I am taking another three months of supplements and eating all the red meat on the planet with four litres of orange juice a day, before getting my bloods repeated. If at such a time there is still no change, there will be further investigations into what might be causing this. Let's hope they figure it out before I leave for New York... (I will miss the NHS that year).

Generally, I am feeling positive, despite the myalgia and fatigue and I am ready to get into the Christmas spirit when the markets start to open next weekend!

Have a great week!

Charlotte x