Please can anyone help with the following article, EJSO vol 40 issue 11 page s50. B. Stedman 'Initial UK experience of melphalan percutaneous hepatic perfusion in ocular melanoma. Thank you.

Fantastic news, many congratulations Dr Pineapple! I too have been checking in to see you finally post this. I know we were both writing our theses at about the same time and I have really felt for you and your rollercoaster road. I am impressed by your resillience and stamina, I know it has been extremely tough for you as well. So go out and have a well deserved celebration!!!

Hi to all those PhD parents! When I was studying for my PhD I felt so alone being a student mum. I didn't have anyone who understood how it was juggling studies and babies, just many people who felt I should give up my PhD to raise our family. This fuelled my determination to complete my PhD and show my toddlers (now 2,2 and 3) just what can be achieved when you believe in yourself. Take comfort in the number of other PhD parents there are on here. It is this forum that can give you somewhere to share your frustrations with like-minded students when times are getting tough. Having children will mean productivity will fluctuate and this is ok. You can all succeed so keep at it ;-)

Heidi, I am so pleased that everything is turning out so well for you and Bea. Bath is a lovely place and I loved to meander through the old streets so full of history. I used the uni a few times for library access and binding at the end of my PhD and I was very impressed with the campus (although parking as a visitor was dire lol). Keep those future ambitions in mind and slowly you will reach the place you want to be. Stand proud because you deserve to.

Well done Pineapple for submitting!! It sounds like you have made an enormous improvement in your thesis and you should be very proud of what you have achieved. I submitted my corrections end July/beg August and to be honest I waited until mid September for a decision for minor corrections. The main issue was everyone being on leave which doesn't make you feel any better about the wait! I heard nothing from my examiner during this time and only had the corrections confirmed by official email/letter (althouth my sup had previously heard on the grapevine). My best advise would be to take a break and do some activities that you would enjoy, you know the sorts of things that you have been putting aside whilst you study! Try not to think too much about the outcome as it will take the examiners a bit of time, they will let you know when they have reached a decision. Wishing you the best of luck for a happy outcome and a virtual hug for being so inspirational :-)

Well done Pineapple!! You have done so much work and it is great that you can see improvements as I am sure your examiners will too. My final week was a bit of a haze. I spent time on checking the formatting (especially after PDF-ing the doc as things change by dropping over a page etc), checking contents page numbers had been updated, checking over the examiners changes and making sure my interpretations were justifiable, re-checking the uni requirements with the latest regs (in-case these had changed), writing my covering letter, filling out the uni submission forms, downloading a final PDF thesis onto disk for the uni, booking printing/binding with enough time to check all pages present before hand in. If you have cited lots more refs then make sure these are all included in the ref section aswell.

I found this last week to be a little nerve-wracking as I was worried about everything being correct. I was paranoid about the examiners not liking my changes and rejecting my thesis. They are not there to try and fail you. They have allowed you this opportunity to tidy up your thesis and focus your work so I am sure they are looking to pass you. Once it is handed in, what-will-be-will be! Feel proud of what you have achieved :-)

Congratulations Dr Heidi!! I always had faith that you could get through this, well done. Hope you and Bea are having time to do some celebrating together while you both prepare to move on. Wishing you both well for your new future together (up)

Good luck with your viva Heidi! Hope things are going well for you and Bea in Bath, you are a surviver so keep smiling :-)

Thank you Clupea, very much appreciated!

Hi Pineapple! I found that my thesis seemed an insurmountable challenge at the beginning yet when I had drafted my thesis it was a hefty 20% overweight. I seemed to have learnt how to waffle on too much with my writing skills during the writing phase and was quite despondent when I had to ruthlessly edit it for the final draft. However, this is an excellent skill to learn in order to keep the argument concise. Students whom I work alongside make me smile 'a wry smile' when they complain of their impending assignments of 3000-6000 words :p

This topic aside, how are your revisions going Pineapple? I often wonder how you are getting on.

Hi forumees. I am trying to access an article for some exciting new work I may be doing very soon but my uni doesn't seem to have access to this journal any more. Can anyone else help me please.

Gifford, D. 1991, Perfusion 6(3):203-208 (accessed via sage) 'Support perfusion for liver transplantation'

Thank you
H x

I agree Ian, this is a place for support and whilst I understand everyone has the right to their opinion it was poorly placed. The OP is clearly having a lot of emotional turmoil at the moment and such posts will only further add to that. Maybe that is a part of forums (trolls and the opposing views) but sometimes the anonymity of the forum is the only place that some people can get the support they need when those nearest and dearest are few and far between. Isolation is very hard when under additional stress. Hopefully Heidi will see that the majority posting here are there to help her.

Hi Heidi, I am hoping that you have now submitted! I, amongst many other forumees, have been cheering you on from my very remote sidelines as I know how hard it is to finish your thesis under extreme circumstances. It can be done and you have also shown that, well done. With any luck you are having a well earned break with Little Miss Bea who I am sure is equally delighted with your accomplishments. Take a break to distance yourself from your thesis before picking it up for the viva prep. From now on a critical approach to your work is needed to higlight issues, justify your decisions and defend your thesis. We look forward to hearing your good news whether it be on your home front or your PhD. Keep your head held high as you deserve to feel proud. Must dash as my three munchkins are causing chaos in the garden lol :p

In an ideal world the tables would be complete on just one page as would quotations. I had to re-format my thesis to avoid breaking tables so would space the text evenly on the page rather than a great big blank gap. This may have meant bringing the next paragraph onto this page so that the table would sit nicely on the next page. I didn't necessarily have the table on the same page as the reference to it, it may have been on the next page. Where I had a lot of figures or tables in one chapter I kept the key ones in the chapter and had to put the others into an appendix together otherwise the text would have been broken up by too many illustrations. Another suggestion (which I kind of did aswell) was to have the text on one page followed by a page or two of tables/figures followed by text again. Hope this helps.

Hey Skig, the final journey is in sight!! Two weeks is good, as previously said, just know your thesis and your rationale for everything. Go through Bilbo's 5 areas to give yourself some revision on your work and how it all fits in the wider context. I also found it helpful to ask myself Qs and to actually answer them verbally. This was I could practice talking about my thesis!

Good luck with the prep, perfect timing to remain focused :-x