Afraid the illness is incurable and progressive, so I'm stuck with it. It's been an increasing problem throughout the PhD. But I've made it to this stage, so have nearly got there, though I've been managing on less and less hours by the end (less than 5 hours a week over the final year).

Every day I hope for an email about the viva in my inbox. Nothing yet :-s

When I left my full-time EPSRC-funded PhD 13 years ago my husband was able to claim an additional dependents' allowance on his EPSRC-funded PhD to help support me. A dependent was a spouse or child not earning. Not much, but every bit helped. You say your wife's funding is from the university. I don't suppose there's any provision for allowance for dependents?

Afraid that I can't advise on benefits, though my experience was that we weren't eligible for anything, because my husband was a full-time student. Things might have changed for the better.

I'm dead slow ;-) I can only work for short periods due to serious illness, plus I find my concentration wanders after reading for too long. I try to complete rereading a chapter at a time. I checked chapter 3 of my thesis earlier tonight. Next night it's chapter 4, and that's the biggest of the lot, so that will be a big thing to get out of the way. But I'd rather do the checking in lots of smaller chunks, and be fresh and careful, than try to push myself more.

Of course I don't even have a viva date yet, so I reckon I have plenty of time :)

Crikey 450 pages! Mine is 250 pages long, but the last 50 are bibliography + appendix so don't really count. My core thesis is 70,000 words long, which is a little short for my discipline, but I've been reassured by lots of people that it will be ok. Hoping the examiners agree.

I'm slowly working through rereading. Now up to page 74. Spotted an "a" which should be "as" just now. Don't mind silly small errors like that. There aren't too many. More serious errors would worry me!

I was doing this all the way through my PhD, particularly on the methodology front! So much of my research depended on what I could find in terms of source material, and it was often like looking for a needle in a haystack. And then I had to write it all up as though I knew what I was doing at the outset :p

Thanks Tennie: I found both lists very helpful, and will be using them in my viva preparation.

I wish I did know my thesis inside out, but I have significant memory problems due to brain damage, so the summarising technique should help me a lot to try to overcome those.

I do hope I hear about my viva date soon. My thesis was submitted 17 days ago, so it's been rather an age. Though my internal also changed recently, so there has been some movement.

My supervisor described one of my examiners as a combination of intimidatingly scary and nice. Which is rather worrying! But I'm confident they should be fair, which is the main thing.

My preparation's going ok thanks. I've started rereading my thesis, summarising it in the way that Phillips and Pugh recommend in their PhD book, so I can take in a few pages summarising the thesis into the viva, and thus find anything I need in a flash. Well that's the theory anyway! Once I've finished doing that I will be tackling the big questions (like what would I do differently, what are the weaknesses, what's the most significant result, etc.) that examiners might ask.

I still don't have a date, but I'm hopeful of hearing something soon. Main thing is I'm preparing. At the moment I'm still expecting my viva to be around the end of March. I met my supervisor for an informal chat last week, which helped, and another member of academic staff is going to meet me to give me advice next week as well. So all good.

I'm not having a mock viva. It wouldn't be good for me. If you do have one I'd recommend you have it more than a day before the real thing though, so you can recover _and_ learn from it.

If you want help to imagine what will happen perhaps you should have a mock viva? Your supervisor should be able to arrange this with you. Viva preparation books also demystify the process. I'm finding Tinkler and Jackson's book particularly good for this, letting me know what to expect. Of course every viva is different, and can't be predicted totally in advance. But you can get a pretty good idea.

Yes I have another table/figure which could go either way. My jury is still out on that one!

I've started rereading my thesis now (up to page 47 out of about 200 main pages) and am noting things as I go along. Found a comma in the wrong place yesterday, and a phrase which even I'm having trouble understanding! Noting them as I go along.

It's possible to apply for funding after starting in arts/humanities (AHRC), and I did this in my first year, and won funding for the rest of my PhD. I stayed part-time, but had I been healthier I could have switched to full-time study after winning my funding.

But I've no idea if it's possible in sciences, sorry.

Could you try phoning your university library? A friendly librarian might be willing to check the page reference for you in the circumstances. I'd try that if I was in your position.

Huge congratulations! As someone with a looming viva it's very encouraging to hear how yours went, though I have to say I dearly hope that mine is much shorter :p

In my Masters course I was the first person for a very long time to get a distinction, so it seems to have been very difficult, even though the other people had excellent undergraduate results.