During the summer holidays I found out that I’d been accepted into Plymouth University to do a full time Masters in Clinical Research (MClinRes). So last week I went back to school!

I would hope you can guess I’ll be researching a topic related to hyperemesis gravidarum and specifically I’m going to be looking at women’s experiences of rapid rehydration (ie 2 litres of IV fluid over 4 hours in a day case setting) verses admission and standard IV protocols of a couple of litres of fluid over a number of hours. The intention would then be to go on to PhD level and look at Rapid rehydration protocol and outcomes in more depth.

As part of the course and the research process I’ll be reviewing mountains of current literature on hyperemesis gravidarum, much of which I’m already familiar with but I’ll be critically analysing it in more depth than I have done before.

So how will I have time for blogging I hear you panic… fear not dear readers… Already there are articles which have wound me up so completely that I’ve been awake at 01.00am wondering WHY OH WHY does every article on HG simply have to mention ginger. Research containing quotes from hospital staff about women with HG thinking hospital is like a “5 star hotel that they can come and relax at” has had me tossing and turning and stomping around the house in the early hours.

So… the chances are that for the next year or so much of this blog will be comment and review on literature I’m coming across. I’ll be trying to translate “good” literature for readers to understand and I’ll be explaining why the shit literature isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

In the meantime, I’d like to thank you all for getting me through to the finals for the MAD Blog Awards Outstanding Contribution category again this year… I’ve got the awards do this Friday. And if you’d like to support my self-funded studies then please buy my books, or if you’ve already got them then consider donating copies to be sent out to women who call the Pregnancy Sickness Support helpline, we've actually run out of donated HG packs for sending out so could do with people donating them or just the calendars to make up more of the packs.