WHATEVER NEXT?

So now we are up to B-semester 2010 and all-in-all it was going quite well. Grades were okay and I was able to work casually too. From memory nothing stands out that much from this period. I think I have a diary entry around this time that says: “man I’m crap at keeping diaries now, when I was in hospital I wrote everyday..... just clicked why that is – I have BETTER things to do with my time now yeeeehaaaar!”. Around this time I got some of myself back. I went from being constantly worried about getting sick or being a burden, to only letting it cross my mind a few times a day. I enjoyed socialising again, and my friends (bless them) were happy to pick up right where we left off, there were many MANY toasts to good health. For a few weeks I got back into the driver’s seat of my own life again, granted my health had only moved to the passenger’s seat, I was still the one in charge...or so I thought.

University semesters are divided into 6 week blocks with a two week break in between them. At the beginning of the break after the first half I felt knackered, I had put in a lot of hard work during the semester so I was looking forward to a rest. As fellow students are probably already aware you always get sick in the holidays, it’s like the minute you slow down the whole semester catches up with you. This is something I am familiar with so I didn’t think too much about feeling unwell for the first few days. In the middle weekend of the break when the pain came back worse than ever I was completely overwhelmed. Had it not been for debilitating pain I would have thrown my arms skyward and screamed: “Are you serious? Really? What the F**k now!” because that is exactly how I felt.

Before I realised what was happening, there it was again, that big black cloud lingering over me. Fear. How was I going to cope with this again? Did I even have it in me? Is this how it’s always going to be? Why didn’t my surgery work? Will I fail my university papers? Will I lose my job? Can my support network be by my side...again?  At the time I remembered a story book that mum read to us as a child, and after a series of unbearable and unexpected events the main character, exasperated, declares “Whatever Next”... that sums it up!