Hey,
I figured I should give you an insight as to who I am, my life so far, where I am right now and my interests and what I get up to... So here goes.
In short:
My name is Tom. I'm currently 20 years old and from Stoke-On-Trent, UK. I'm a total geek, I always have been, and I probably always will be. I still currently live in Stoke-On-Trent and work in a local pub. I was diagnosed with type 1 Diabetes roughly 5 years ago during a family holiday in the USA. It was a pretty crazy event. It changed my life forever.
In depth:
Growing up, I guess I was pretty spoiled if I'm honest. I had it easy. My little Brother came along when I was 5, we never used to get along but then again which siblings do? I went to a Roman Catholic primary school which was about 5 minutes from my house. There I met some friends I still speak to today. It was alright.
In my last year of primary school I was taken pretty seriously ill and had to spend a bit of time in hospital. I developed and abscess on my leg which gave me blood poisoning, it wasn't the best of times but that said I got time off school and sat around playing the Nintendo 64.
Speaking of the Nintendo 64. That console used to be my life, most kids would have gone out and rode bikes or played football but I would have rather had played Goldeneye or Zelda. Most of my childhood revolved around that console... which is kind of sad really and its probably why I'm so geeky. I still have my N64, its in the box under my bed. I can't throw it away...
Starting high school... I went to another catholic school. There was where my life changed. I remember bricking it on the first day and walking to school with 3 of my friends from primary school. It was rather scary, you go from being a big fish in a small pond to a tiny fish in a giant pond. In high school I met some of my best friends and my life really started. Your real personalities start to come through and I learnt a lot about myself over my time at high school.
Meeting some of my best friends in high school was probably what helped me get through the later years. I had a close circle of friends but got along with most of the other people in the school and I used to hang out with a few friends of friends and people I remembered from primary school. Baz, Chubba, Mike, Respa, Andy and his older brother Chris were the guys I hung out with pretty much all the time. Outside of school we recorded small videos and kept ourselves occupied with that, skateboarding and video games. Reskats and KFC man will probably be memories that never fade, we had so many laughs.
Later years in high school were tough, GCSE's and all that. Then when I was about 14/15 I took a holiday to the USA. I was so hyped, America seemed like a totally different world to what I'm used to in the UK. Funnily enough even though both countries speak english, the yanks have a tough time understanding us. While on holiday we stayed in the middle of Nevada, in some town that consisted of 1 main road. It was in the middle of no where and there was a bridge just a short trip down the road, if you crossed it... the time zone changed... Naturally being the geek that I am, I found it amusing to go "back in time". I started to feel really tired and thirsty during the holiday, but staying in the desert and the day trips, traveling and flight over. I don't think that anyone thought much of it. It seemed logical that I would be tired and thirsty... It was bloody hot.
Few days before the end of the holiday I was in Las Vegas on a day trip. I felt terrible and I started to lose weight, my body felt so weak. We went to the Harley Davidson cafe... I was so thirsty I drank 2 super sodas.... They tasted vile. My taste was completely off, everything tasted wrong and I got hints of pool water or chlorine. It was really strange. I finished drinking them and felt so sick. I remember going to the toilet and puking my guts up, it was seriously wrong it felt acidic and slightly burnt me. I remember going outside and throwing up all over the concrete wall onto a construction site. Everyone was watching but there was nothing I could do. My whole body started to shut down and I was in serious trouble. I was tired and started to get faint. I don't remember much of that but apparently I managed to make it to a walk in clinic and have tests there, I then remember "waking" in the back of an ambulance being rushed to hospital. First time I'd ever been in an ambulance...
Turns out I had developed Type 1 Diabetes and Ketoacidosis... basically...I was dying. Yaaaaaay what a holiday! I was in serious trouble for a few days but eventually I was stable and improving. I didnt feel like eating and I could barely move or anything. I had stages where I couldn't see properly due to hypos and stuff it was quite bad. Whats worse is what I had caused my parents to go through. I still feel guilty to this day about putting them through it but they feel just as bad for not spotting it sooner. It actually breaks my heart when I think about how much it must have hurt them and my brother. I remember him asking if I was going to die, it was horrible. I had a crash course in looking after myself and injections for a few days while I fully recovered and they taught us enough to get us home safely, several days after we originally had planned to fly back to the UK.
Fast forward a few hours and I was home in the UK... For all of 5 minutes, I barely got time to sit down until I was back to the hospital, I'd just got out, an now I'm back in! I was no stranger to hospitals though now, cuts bruises, bangs, scrapes, blood poisoning and my adventures in america. By now though I was sick of the sight of doctors, needles, pamphlets and books. I just wanted to get into my bed and die quietly. I was sick of everything and so depressed. What made it worse is over the next few days bill after bill would arrive in the post. Medical bills. I felt so guilty, because in america you get charged for everything. My parents were that financially fucked that they had to re-mortgage the house. As if I didn't already feel bad enough it made me feel worse. That said though, once I eventually snapped out of my state of depression and sucked it up. Its one of the reasons I have to keep going, for their sake. Don't get me wrong there are days where I can not be bothered with diabetes but I couldn't let it all defeat me and over power me because I would be letting down everyone that pulled together to keep me alive in the first place.
As a result of being constantly up and down in terms of blood sugars for the first 6 months or so of having diabetes I was pretty vile, I didn't know how to cope with the aggression I felt when ill and lashed out a lot when I felt sick and pushed most of my family and friends away. It wasn't good. Going back to school was pretty nuts. I was glad when it was all over really. I messed up on some of my GCSE's because I had to cram missed work in and drop subjects as well as doing extra bits and pieces to some how make it all work. I did ok though given the circumstances but no where as well as I was expected or predicted.
With high school over I started the stage of parties, drinking and all that fun stuff during the summer holidays, meeting new people and all that stuff. I started college in September which was a short bus ride from my house. I decided to do things differently though, I went to a different college to most of my friends because it was better for me. If I'd have gone to the same college as my friends, I'd have just messed around and would have been too tempted to not turn up instead mess around with mates. Though that said, Me, Baz and Andy ended up going the same college and later on I found out so did Respa. During college I studied motor mechanics, doing 2 years and starting but never finishing the 3rd year. I met some friends for life during that time. Ash, James and Brad were awesome and we still keep in touch and me and Ash still party or hang out at weekends.
I was still playing video games but I had a bit more of a social life... Until I finished college that was. I was unemployed an bored as hell. I had a small part time job through my time at college doing a few hours in a supermarket working for a merchandising company. It was boring but It got me beer money and video games! I started to play Call of Duty 4 more seriously and spoke to a guy called Dan who went to my high school. He then became another good friend and later introduced me to competitive play. After a year or so my team was formed and we started to play pro pro leagues in Call of Duty 4. It was kind of short lived to start off with, there was too much bitching sometimes! Dan, Alex, James, Mike, Little Tom and Little Chris are guys who I talk to pretty much every day. They're my team and my best friends. They're great. We've had our fair share of falling out over the years but we always managed to sort stuff out eventually and get on with it. After a few months of "dole dosing" and some heavy video game sessions. I got a job working in a call center.
Working at Elmfield was fun... Easiest job i'll ever have. I had to make calls on behalf of the NSPCC. It was easy and most of the time me and everyone in the office spent more time chatting to each other than we did to people on the phone. I think my group was probably the worst group to ever work at Route 2 in terms of calls and targets met. At work I met and made friends with Dale, Jess, Salina, Matt and my manager Shaun. All of which are awesome people. Shaun was a great manager and hes a good friend too which made working there enjoyable and fun. After my 6 month contract was over at Route 2. I had another stage of playing lots of video games and doing pretty much nothing with my days.
Few weeks later the pub was being re-opened by one of my best mates Chris who I met through another 2 of my best mates Kenny and Hoppy. Past few years hanging out with Kenny and Hoppy has taught me a lot and I've met a lot of people through them. They've been good to me over the years and I'm grateful for it. We always watch Stoke play football at the weekends. We've been absolutely leathered, shouting an screaming at the TV, jumping for joy and high fiving each other from across the room and damn near close to smashing the TV up! I'm always guaranteed a laugh though when I'm with them and I can talk to them about stuff I cant with a lot of people. They're a lot older and for the most part wiser so through them I've picked up quite a few lessons in life and learnt a certain type of ethic when it comes to my life and how I live it.
Which pretty much brings me to where I am now. I started working for Chris at the pub when it re-opened and I'm saving up money to buy a car and move out an continuing my life and taking it to the next step. I also met this girl called Nicola, shes totally awesome and I like her a lot, and believe me when I say a lot! I've had relationships, love, heart break and all that throughout the years but this is different, I can feel it and I'm actually the happiest I've been in a long, long time right now. I have no idea where my life will take me but thats the biggest events in my life and the people most important to me who have been there through the years and will probably continue to be there in the future. I've missed out smaller parts purely because Its a blog not an autobiography but you get a rough idea of who I am and what has happened so far in my life.
Take care.
