I ran choir rehearsals last night. Only the second time this year. Only the second time since I've been out of hospital. They forgot to leave a bar stool out for me to perch on so I stood the whole 2 hour session and succumbed to my energetic style of conducting. By the end of the session I felt busted and truly broken. Luckily for me, my friend and choir member brought me back to her place to stay in her delightful summer house in the countryside of Harlow. I'll be convalescing here for 4 days including a gong bath tonight hosted by my her business Naturally Attuned. Today my body feels like I've done 10 rounds with Mike Tyson. I can barely move. My body hurts everywhere, mobility is strained so I can think of nothing better to do than to sit in this peaceful garden and write more chapters about my strange medical journey.
Inspirational Operation:
After the resection operation in my intestine, I woke up buzzing and inspired! Throughout my sleep I'd had realisations and and gut deep conversations with my deep and inner self. In my sleep had come the stark realisation - "I have to change my life!" No matter the outer physical and medical concepts, this level of sickness appeared to me to be an extreme indicator for change. Before becoming this sick, I'd had 3 bouts of illness, one after the other.
The Lead Up:
At the tale end of November 2018, I moved into my own home, a long desired dream for many, many years. Two weeks later, I caught a nasty cold. Instinct told me to take time off and get better properly. I took time off work to recover but found myself battling with workplace challenges and back and forth emails with management and unions. I got no rest. I returned to work feeling bedraggled and not quite right. By the end of the week I turned up for work feeling truly rough and on picking up the phone, found that I couldn't speak! Just like that, voice, totally gone. Not good in a front facing role. I was told to go home. I was diagnosed with respiratory tract infection and ordered to have complete bad rest. "How boring!" I thought but that same day, the minute that my body hit the sofa, I was out like a light. I wasn't well and I knew it. I spent the next week having a serious relationship with my bed. Christmas came and my family came to me. I loved cooking for them and having them all around me but I was still weak and recovering. I didn't eat much on Christmas day, I had no appetite. I'd had low appetite for weeks. (I didn't know back then, but this was a sign of the blocked intestine. I thought the loss of appetite and weight was simply due to the winter bugs). I was just thrilled that my family were celebrating my new home with me and that they all loved it. When they left by 7pm I fell exhausted into bed and my body shut down to sleep immediately.
I recouped in a similar fashion for the week after Christmas and invited 3 close friends around for new years eve. I figured that as I could see The London Eye from my flat, we should be able to see the South Bank fire works from my balcony. It was a strange evening. My friends came, my friend DJ Ricco Jose played music and they all enjoyed the nibbles and drinks that I'd provided, yet as each moment went by I began struggling for breath and began coughing inexplicably. The firework show was truly impressive. "Happy new year!" my neighbours screamed from their balconies. The view was truly stunning but I was suffering, desperately sipping cups of ginger tea to ease my tight chest and the breathless coughing. A short time after midnight, there was nothing for it, I had to get rid of my guests! How embarrassing, however needs must. I needed to stand in the steam of a hot shower and I needed to get to bed. They had to go. It would take my guests a further 2 hours to finally leave. Life was too good at the newly named 'Hotel Kayo'. As I fell into a welcome plume of sleep, propped up by pillows, I wheezed unconsciously into sweet oblivion.
New years day was a struggle, I still couldn't breathe. I took all the gorgeous Christmas bouquets out of my living room to go die on the balcony. "Evil beautiful flowers" I cursed at them thinking that their pollen was responsible for my condition. Their absence however, didn't make much difference. I still couldn't breathe. I was still coughing and rasping. I got to a doctor as soon as I could. On 2nd of January I got a diagnosis. I had acute bronchitis. Apparently this can be common place after a flu or chest infections. However this pattern of illness after illness was certainly not common place for me! "I'm the bounce-back girl" I thought to myself as I gulped on my tasty green smoothies and returned to work a week later. I left my home feeling shocked at being so sickly three times in a row. "That's not me. I AM NOT THAT GIRL!!!" I remember shouting out defiantly to myself as I picked up my health and keys, ready to go face the workplace. "I am not that girl!".
On returning to work, I dealt with my difficult team mates, ignored salty behaviours, got back on top of department matters, spoke my mind to my manager, liaised with my clients and generally took care of business the way I do. "Yeeeeah I'm back!" I thought triumphantly to myself.
By that Friday night, I was puking my guts up, in agony, dialling 111 and being taken into A&E
Why do we do what we do?!
I had been working crazy hours at work for months, from 8.30am to 8.30pm, only just keeping from drowning in the increased demands of my job. It's quite a thing when the office cleaners get to know you by name. It's strange when you leave work and you're the only one in the building.
A job I quite loved had, in the last 8 months turned into a nightmare, a toxic pool of overload and the department getting nowhere. I was well aware back in November that I needed to get off this ever increasingly toxic hamster wheel. My work was eating into my personal time, eating into my relationships, eating into my weekends and now it was eating into my health! I had already flagged this at work. No real solutions had been provided. The intensity of my workload was turning me into someone that I was not. "I'll look for a new job in the Christmas break" I promised myself during those bouts of illness. A few friends spoke with me during these spates of enforced rest. They encouraged me earnestly to find another way. I earnestly listened to what they and my gut instincts were telling me. Clearly, I listened too late.
On waking in my post op hospital bed, I took this fourth and very extreme level of illness to be a life indicator and pivotal point. Starting with a common cold, each proceeding illness had worse than the previous, "How many messages does the Universe need to give you?" I asked myself from deep within.
On waking up in my post op hospital bed I was inspired
"You will find another way!"
"You are creative. The creativity that you put into you place of work to help create their income, you can put into yourself to help create an income."
The way was not yet clear then. It is not clear now. It will become clear. I will work on my ideas.
I knew then that I would need to recover to fully explore my ideas and new avenues. My gut instinct had spoken loud and clear, and it had woken me up inspired.
A blocked intestine. A resection of the small intestine. These have no real correlation to workplace stress. Nevertheless my gut feelings had spoken through my post op dreams. The voice spoke very clearly. "I need to change my life!"
My gut speaks this same message clearly now, as I convalesce in a pretty little garden in the suburbs of Harlow Town.
