Starting again…
Like everyone currently living through this pandemic, my life feels like it’s in a holding pattern, just waiting to get back to life as we knew it.
This is not the first time my life has been put on hold, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. In 2017, after a long 2-year slow road to recovery, my life was derailed once again by a small cut on the back of my leg and I found myself back in hospital. Now, I’m no stranger to hospitals as I have been in and out of them since I was born for one reason or another, but for this particular wound I was hospitalised a second time to finally finish my healing, and to hopefully put an end to the constant dressing changes, medication, hospital stays, multiple surgeries, fevers, needles, uncertainty and generally feeling unwell the whole time. I had been trying to heal my body naturally up until this point, but it would not cooperate. It would not heal to the point of full recovery and I had to do something about it to finish this chapter and have the freedom to move on, to start life again.
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Taking one step back to take two steps forward
I knew it was not going to be easy, but I knew it would be worth it and, in all honesty, if you look at the bigger picture it has been. I was admitted to hospital in early November 2017 and did not see the outside world until the end of January 2018. It started out well, the plan was to surgically close the wound and they warned me that they had to make the wound worse to make it better. My wound ended up 5 times bigger than when we started, and they estimated it should only take 6 weeks to heal. Taking all this into consideration, the next day I had surgery and from that day until I was discharged I did not leave my bed or the room. I did not sit up or even roll over to my left side; I had to lay on my right side, completely flat with minimal movement the entire time.
Generally I am a positive person, I can always see the good in every situation and this was no different. Each day was one day closer to going home and that’s what I kept reminding myself. One of my favourite quotes by Abraham Lincoln is “…this, too, shall pass…” and I just kept looking forward. But week 6 broke me. The doctors came in and told me the surgery had failed and that we would have to start again. For the first time in my hospital stay I felt defeated.
Was this ever going to end?
Was I ever going to go home and would life go back to normal?
No one had the answers, there was no guarantees, you just had to try again and hope for the best. So, for the next few days I had to dig deep; I had to get my mind back in the game. I had to breathe… refocus… and start again.
Back to square one
So, there I was having gone through my second surgery in a matter of weeks and I was once again back to square one starting the long journey to healing, laying on my right side completely flat. I was terrified to even move for most of the second half of my stay. I did not want this surgery to break down, it had to work this time and I would do what ever it took to make this work.
Christmas passed.
New Years passed.
And, finally, this time it worked. Going home was getting closer. I would not be out of the woods for many months as even once the wound has healed, it was new and fragile and could break down at any time. However, I was finally given a discharge date and I would be allowed to go home in 2 weeks if all goes well.
It was only then that I was allowed to sit after all those months. It was brief initially, for the first week I was allowed to sit for only 10 minutes every 2 hours. It’s such a strange feeling sitting up after months of laying down, I had to hang on to the end of the bed as my body had naturally adjusted to laying on my side and that’s what it wanted to do. It had muscle memory, though, and sitting was something I needed to relearn all over again because if I let go, I would fall over
Using this learned resilience to help me through COVID-19
For me, this COVID-19 is just another moment in time that I need to get through before I can get back to life as we knew it. It may be a new way of life with many changes but it will be life ready to enjoy again. For now, it’s a familiar feeling of uncertainty, fear of the unknown. I can choose to focus on the negative or I can choose to focus on the positives. The latter is always my go too. In this ‘down time’ I have been growing my NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) business and moving into the Aged Care Sector by doing virtual meetings and all the background work I would normally put off until later. I’ve been catching up with friends online and even simply working with my wonderful coach Kate to get me to write this blog (which is totally out of my comfort zone).
I’m taking this time to work on myself, to work on my own mindset which gets challenged from time to time as I’m human and, like everyone, I have to work on this every day to keep me moving forward.
I’m working on my motivation and preparing to get back to training when we are allowed back into the gyms, as staying home is becoming a little to comfortable when I’m able to watch Netflix any time I want!
I am refocusing on my food choices to get my health and fitness back to the level it was before my hospital visits and overall to feel better about myself as I take on this new challenge of getting back into competitive sports.
What I know is that we all have choices. Like before, I concentrate on the positives and I take it one day at a time, knowing I am one day closer until I can breathe… refocus… and start again.
What will you choose?