Many Oxford narratives have been told time and again, but the story of the chronically-ill overachieving student is one which has more fruit to bear. The experience of such an intense, fast-paced university inside a slow, self-destructive body is a poetic oxymoron worthy of exploration.
I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Disease at eight years old, and so have come to accept it as a very mundane aspect of my day-to-day life. To the outside world, this manifests itself as daily medication, avoiding certain foods, going to bed a little earlier than most, and being very upset when my ankles get cold. Much of the time, I believe this is how it is – no different in any great capacity from everyone else. Yet in the brief moments of pause within the frenetic pace of Oxford life, I am reminded that I do, in fact, struggle with things that many of my peers have never even considered, big and small.
Particularly as the winter months draw closer, I become wary of spending too much time outside lest my bones ache unbearably. I lose a night’s sleep, and am too exhausted to keep my eyes open to get through the four readings required of me the next day. The same is true of the weeknight clubbers, whose squeals echo around my central Oxford bedroom in the small hours. A chronically-ill friend of mine joked about taking extra sleeping pills to combat this issue. This lack of sleep causes a hefty flare of symptoms – aches, pains, fatigue, brain fog – all unfortunate afflictions when trying to keep up the academic excellence most of us aspire to achieve.
There is a quiet sense of shame that comes with many of my symptoms. In particular, I suffer with leg pains which can sometimes stop me from walking. This is a harsh fact of late-night trips home from a ball at the Isis Farmhouse – the irony of the beautiful gown floating around my weak ankles as I insist to my friends that I can absolutely make it home. I throw around jokes about being the grandma of the group as I slip on my compression socks, or my fingerless gloves, which I can’t attend a choir rehearsal without, as my hands will lose circulation and I won’t be able to turn pages. But these measures aren’t a panacea, and as much as I would prefer to hide them away underneath a respectable healthy exterior, I now realise that my time at university is too limited to spend concealing the less aesthetic parts of myself. The public spectacle I produced by fainting in the city centre might have made me wish the ground would open up and swallow me, but at the end of the day, visibility is not a curse. These physical reminders aren’t just for myself, but others around me who might suffer and experience similar things.
Most people can easily understand the physical symptoms like fatigue and pain. But the mental aspects are a bit more of a grey area. Brain fog, concentration, and memory problems are particularly prevalent for me, unfortunate in an environment like Oxford where academic work plays a huge role in day-to-day life. While my tutors have been accommodating, I continue to struggle with the unpredictability of my condition. Because of the nature of autoimmune diseases, it can be near impossible to plan out a week, or even a day. Having to take each day as it comes, even at the detriment of mental goals, is something I am learning to embrace throughout my experience of university. Worries about unexplained symptoms, remembering to schedule a multitude of doctors’ appointments and collect medications monopolise my time. All these aspects contribute to the perpetual uncertainty which characterises the lives of chronically ill students, inevitably exacerbated by the intensity of the Oxford environment.
During my time at university, I’ve spoken to quite a few fellow chronically-ill students about their experiences, and I’ve found comfort in our shared feelings. Besides fatigue, the common theme is frustration and isolation. There is a quiet tendency to convince yourself that “everything is fine, I’m just like anybody else, I don’t need help”. But the reality for these students is that most days can’t be predicted. Some days are more normal than others, and other days remind us why we were diagnosed. But what keeps me going is the desire to thrive and make the most of my time at Oxford, in spite of the unique challenges it throws up. Normality can’t be straightforwardly quantified, and the muted struggles and triumphs of chronically-ill students ultimately enrich the variety of perspectives that make up the Oxford experience.
