Rock Bottom.

Being sick isn’t a part time thing, it’s all consuming and even in the cherished moments of wellness, there is the ever present fear of impending sickness for which a contingency plan must be made. There is the pressure and fear of becoming a burden to those around you if you do go out to do something and it all goes pear shape. In addition to this there is a part of your soul that just resigns sometimes, too much for too long, I’m too tired sort of thing. When you have just turned 21 this truly SUCKS. You are finally at the stage in your life when you can go where you want to, when you want to and you don’t have to ask anyone for permission. In my world I couldn’t even go to the toilet without buzzing for a nurse to come and unhook my drip (a skill that I quickly mastered due to understaffing – NO WAY was I going to wet the bed!). So I swung between the two extremes; at one end of the scale I was miserable, didn’t want to go anywhere, do anything or see anyone. At the other end of the scale I made big plans in my head and felt I could do anything if I just pushed my illness to the side. Happy medium was not in my vocabulary at the time. An example of this pendulum mentality occurred in March when I was due to go to a music festival that my girlfriends and I were turning into an annual event. I had been given the tickets for my birthday and a week out from the event I still fully intended to go, despite the fact I was still in a hospital on the tail end of a two week stay. Four days before the festival, sitting in the hospital, drip in arm, hospital gown on, it hit me like a ton of bricks that there was not a chance in hell that I was going to be able to make it, I couldn’t get to the TV room without a wheelchair, there is no way I was going to be able to rock out with 20,000 people and camp for 3 days. Seems so obvious in hindsight but at the time I was pretty devastated. F**k this thing, f**k it whatever it was, making me so sick and stealing my life. To cut a long story short I sold my ticket and proceeded to sulk miserably. Mum, bless her, managed to score cheap flights online to Wellington, my sister and I had never been there so she booked them for the middle of May. It was such a lovely gesture and cheered me up considerably. My mind was in overdrive planning touristy adventures and picking out accommodation. For a brief second I had the horrible thought ‘what if I’m still sick then?’ but I quickly brushed it aside, the trip was two months away I’d DEFINATELY be better by then. March came to a close, as did April and still my condition had not been resolved. As I mentioned earlier this was a hellish crazy time for me, my hopes were sky high - my trip to Wellington was going to mark better times to come. I was due to fly out on Wednesday. The weekend prior to that, sitting in the hospital, drip in arm, hospital gown on, it hit me like a ton of bricks AGAIN that there was no way I was going to be able to get on that plane.

If I thought I was disappointed last time, this was a whole new level of despair. The thoughts that had been lingering at the edge of my mind, that not being alive would be better than living this pathetic pain full half life, were beginning to come to the forefront of my mind. I had lost all hope. I was struggling to see myself living a full and happy life again. I didn’t want to be strong, I didn’t want to be positive, and I didn’t want anyone to tell me that it would get better. Being positive and strong hadn’t helped and so far things were only going from bad to worse. I was on a one way street heading straight towards rock bottom. And then I got my lifeline.

It was the Tuesday afternoon before I would have been flying out. Mum sensing my despair had really been pushing the doctors to do something for me, she knew that I couldn’t carry on much longer the way things were going, something had to give. I think I mentioned earlier how there is such a shortage of resources with the different specialist field teams. Once you are assigned to a team it is very hard to get another type of doctor to even take a look at your file. For months Mum and I had been ‘lobbying’ the gynaecology team to have a look at me, basically begging them to try and help me to absolutely no avail. So you can imagine my surprise when the head specialist/surgeon pulled the curtain of my cubicle back an announced that he had a cancelation in his schedule and would be performing a diagnostic laparoscopy on me the next morning.

On May 19^th as my sister was at the airport about to fly to Wellington, I was preparing for surgery and I couldn’t have been happier. For a split second the thought crossed my mind ‘What if they don’t find anything? What if I really am crazy?’ but deep down I knew that this surgery was going to change my life. From where I stood (well lay), things could only get better.