The post-PhD blues

I submitted my thesis less than five minutes ago and already have the blues. Truthfully, I have had the blues for a few weeks now, anticipating the end.

I wanted things to take a long time. I have until 2024 to finish but the project captured my interest and my attention. Without intending to, I finished in 3.5 years rather than the six I was given (let alone the eight I could take if required!).

It has been an intense time, bookmarked by injury and illness.

January, four years ago, I was trying to decide if I would apply to the program. I knew it would be life-changing and deeply challenging. With a week left before the application deadline, Hubby and I decided to hike out to our favourite mountain, Mt Feathertop, so that I could sit, think and make a decision.

The night before, Hubby’s dad had a visit to the hospital, and Hubby had had a late night. We only had a few days available to go so we decided we would go anyway. It’s a long drive and we didn’t get away early. It was afternoon before we started on the track. The weather was good and we were feeling great. Determined to make a final decision on the summit, I cheerfully walked on. I had no idea that an hour later I would fall and break my leg.

I was so angry with myself. It had been a simple fall from tiredness—I get particularly clumsy when tired and have been known to occasionally fall over at the end of a day of hiking.

And there was the pain, too.

Thankfully, Hubby is a paramedic trained for Wilderness Rescue and we were both able to keep a calm head. We weren’t in a place that was safe for a helicopter. I wasn’t bleeding and hadn’t hit my head. I could wait even if nausea meant I could hardly lift my head from the ground. We were 5km into the wild. It would be a while before the Paramedic Wilderness Response Team and the SES were going to arrive.

In the blur of waiting and pain and frustration, I imagined that I could see the summit. I couldn’t—there were several hills in the way—but I thought I could. I stared at that summit, angry that the mountain had betrayed me, that she had refused to reassure me that opening up my trauma childhood was going to be okay.

The rescue was arduous, for me and for the people who came for me. Thankfully, the night was mild and the sky clear and beautiful. It snowed the next night—the High Plains can be like that, even in January.

Fourteen hours after I first fell, we arrived at the hospital. Everyone was exhausted and after an initial assessment, it was decided that it would be best if we could get ourselves home to have the leg treated. It was a week before we could get in to see the surgeon. I had the strongest feeling that as soon as the surgeon saw the leg, he would want to operate and that would be me wiped out from being able to think. Not that I was my sharpest while waiting.

The GP gave me painkillers and I decided that the day before my appointment with the surgeon, I would submit my PhD application. Loaded with pain killers I gave myself the whole day to get it finalised. I had, via a wheelchair and a very supportive family, had my documents authorised and only had to tidy up the written component.

It took me all day, punctuated with slow, painful trips to the bathroom. Finally, I submitted, wishing it good luck.

I didn’t look at the application again for six weeks.

When I did take a look, I noticed a significant error on the opening page. I blended two sentences together so catastrophically that I couldn’t pull them apart and see what I had meant to say. Thankfully, this didn’t seem to put off the admissions committee, who could see beyond my muddled, pain-ridden sentence structure.

Rule #1: Never look at something you have already submitted.

Now that I am at the end, four years almost to the day since I broke my leg, I am amused at the irony of the circle being completed. No, I haven’t broken a bone.

But I do have Covid-19. The illness is relatively mild at the moment but I am worried that my symptoms will worsen as I approach my submission deadline of the 10th. I don’t want to be so sick as to not be able to manage this final step.

So I submitted it today.

It was ready. Hubby took a final look at it—he has an eagle eye for typos, etc—and I went over the references again. My goodness, those pesky commas, spaces, and ampersands!

Hubby tells me I’ve had a big day: I’ve gone from being a lost child to a found poet to a lost soul, all in one day!

I am sad the research is finished and proud of what I have produced. I am absolutely implementing Rule #1. It will be several months now until I get my results and probably not until later in the year that I can call myself Doctor.

Not that it was ever about that.