Toppling like a tree

Singing along to the radio, mum giving me sips of my green juice (in my sippy cup), all while trying to find these crazy obscure doctor’s locations – it was fun! Then always coupled with a stop off at the farmers market on the way home – fun and fine food! Yes!

I truly loved these times and I’m also so grateful just how loyal my mum was to my path. But we both knew the drill, we weren’t certain either way. Like, how would this thing end? So, it was just a case of one day at a time, one moment at a time, one appointment at a time. But I was definitely reconnecting with my mum and becoming closer with my roots.

Funnily, the sicker I became, there was this natural gravitational pull back to family. It’s hardly a secret though, you can see it worldwide with many terminal patients, family is always there right to the end – or should be. Okay, call me old fashioned, but this is definitely my hope for everybody. See, some families do run the other way (possibly due to a lack of understanding, making it about themselves and through fear), it’s just so sad. Because when you’ve got nowhere else to turn, it sure is nice to see someone who believes in you. Trust me, I know.

Even when tragedy struck again my family was there.

You see, one day, all I did was simply stand up off the toilet, trip on my own pants, and as my arms didn’t work I couldn’t break my fall. KAPOW! I toppled exactly like a tree; head first, smashing my face on to a raised step at the base of the shower (on the other side of the ensuite). BANG! OUCH! My neck snapped back just like that guy who’s told to eat the gutter in the film American History X. This was a real shock, oh man I just can’t put it into words huh. I even remember trying to spit my teeth out, but rather, instead I’d completely smashed my nose apart.

The bridge of my nose was literally pissing blood, instantly, and man the floor looked like Martyn Bryant had been there. Dazed and confused, seeing stars, with a hefty wound gaping across my face. Yep, this deserves another urrgh. Mum arrived quickly as she heard the bang, oh crikey what a sight it must have been. Her look of sheer terror simply piercing. The ambulance was on its way.

I’d experienced yet another utterly crushing defeat. I was beyond helpless, and the whiplash from hitting the step was killing me. But I suffered in silence. A constant reminder… ‘it’s not all about what’s happening on the outside’.

After the ambulance left (as I refused to go to hospital – stubborn moron), I was told to sit in an armchair with my head tilted back for as long as I could. I must have been such a sight with my nose now packed with gauze, I sat there for two whole days too, well I had to as my nose bled for those two days as well.

Blood, snot and tears… yep bringing sexy back!

But in that armchair, crikey there was some really intense interactions then. In actual fact, I think this was the first time that I’d knowingly felt and understood unconditional love (thanks mum), as no joke I thought I was dying. And despite by body crumbling around me and my broken face, life is what I was learning. Love is what I was learning.

See my adversity was quickly becoming the launching pad to understanding many things – in self, life and beyond. It made me ask the big questions. This is what I would think as I sat there in this armchair staring at the beige ceiling. And in all seriousness people need to explore this stuff – otherwise what is the point!?

So, for me, my adversity was like part of a system upgrade. Plus, the game I was now playing had changed, as so had the rules. Things were even starting to simplify as new parameters had been drawn. Actually, everything was becoming either about life or death, so clear-cut, as in everything I did was either health promoting or it would contribute to my demise.

It was painful and it was real.