Take a Load For Free
I went to the Doctor’s in 2014 and they told me that I was pre pre-diabetic (yes two pre) – or just a bit above average would be another way of putting it. They advised me to cut out drinking orange juice (which I had been doing to stay healthy but turned out that it is rammed full with sugar.
A couple of weeks later I drove to Colchester to go to a hospital appointment with Dad. When we got out of the appointment I really needed to get back to work and declined his offer of lunch, then changed my mind – it was the summer holiday and I was hungry. We just went to Frankie and Benny’s at Stanway a couple of miles away. On the way out the sore throat that I had been feeling for a few days felt noticeably worse. This was nothing to worry about as I have suffered from sore throats all my life – so much so that I had penicillin so often that I was allergic to it by the time I was seven years old (it was not fashionable to have your tonsils removed when I was that age, despite Dr Harper in Royston having a reputation as a butcher). Even now whenever I get a bug a sore throat is always the first symptom.
The sore throat did not go away, if anything it got worse. August is very busy at work with the year end and then enrolment later in August. I went to the Doctor and told him about it, as well as the fact that I was feeling very run down. He sent me for blood tests.
A week later with me feeling dreadful he called to say that I had the Epstein Barr virus – glandular fever to most people. I had seen this twice before in my life. My Mum had had it when I was a child and been very sick for months and Dave had had it after we had left school and he had been laid up with it for a couple of months. Despite this I decided that I was different and could soldier on.
Two days later I was sitting in a senior management on a hot summer day. Everyone else was in light summer wear. Me? Despite never normally feeling cold I had a hoodie, parka, hat and gloves on (the temperature was around 27 Centigrade at that point). I gave up and went home – called the Doctor and was signed off work.
I went to stay at Dad’s. He was going into hospital and I could be there and look after the dogs and be in a healthier environment. I was so ill I was not in contact with work for the first time since I had started there. When I tried to visit Dad in hospital I got lost on the journey home and had to pull over in a layby to put the satnav on – a journey that I must have done over 2,000 times.
Dad’s stay in hospital was longer than expected and in the end I had to really have a strong talk with the ward sister as he was not being given the after operation treatment the surgeon had told them to do. Even that left me exhausted.
I was keen to get back to work so went home hoping that I would be fit enough to return. After 2 months I persuaded the Doctor that I could go back 2 hours a day, a couple of days a week. It was not a good idea and I was not ready, I was weak and exhausted even with that low schedule.
I defied the Doctor’s advice increasing my hours before I was ready, but I hated being at home and letting people down. It is scary now as I really do not remember much about the 2014/15 academic year. I have hardly any photos of that period and the ones I have are taken by other people.
(Monoux – where I still work, winter 2014/15).
In retrospect it is obvious that I did not give myself the chance to get better. I hoped going to Italy in the summer of 2015 with Dad would help – more on Italy another time.
Stubborness can be helpful but in this case it was not a good thing at all.
I heard The Band on a compilation when I was at university. They were Bob Dylan’s backing group but went off on their own. Their soft country rock is soothing but this track, the first I heard by them, is their standout.
The Weight
Five Miles Out 