Brick wall

Most of my friends, with the exception of one who is a workaholic, always seem to be impressed that I do as much as I do each week. So it's weird to look back at the month and see the brick wall that I hit so hard I knocked it over.

It's been 18 days.

To remember back over the month, I look over my calendar and I can see the work in my life. Visiting my friend M and her 4 kids in their new parish, playing the piano at night church, continuing to act as boss in the office and all the extra work that was, interviewing the late applicants to find people after leaders pulled out at the last minute, dealing with a difficult situation at work and having to give coaching feedback, coordinating the reporting due, attending extra meetings, giving blood, doing an interview for the work magazine, meeting with the college, getting advised about doing a review of my program, running the first bible study of the year and evaluating a plagiarism game. And then the brick wall.

It's been 18 days.

The best thing of February was definitely the Cronulla ocean swim. Last year my friend at work was going to meet me there but the surf was too crazy and the swim was cancelled. This year, I had nothing much on, I wasn't on music at morning church and I thought I could get back in time for church lunch, so I decided to go along at the last minute.  I drove to Warrawee station because I was worried about parking and then caught the train one stop to Cronulla.

I ran into M as I was walking from the station, and we stayed together all morning. It was a hot day and I did late registration and sighed in relief that they were using caps that fit on my head. M and I got into the water to get wet, and then I was anxious about the surf, so I stayed back a bit but it wasn't far into the swim before I overtook M.

I was really surprised about how hard it was as I went out. The buoys as usual seemed to be so far away. I always forget how it feels like to constantly go into waves, you are literally fighting against the waves and running up against them. They weren't that big, but it's the sense that you're going nowhere that's hard. Finally I reached the bouys and then headed south along the headland.

I knew that this bit would be the easiest bit of the swim, and it was nice to get a bit of speed and momentum.  I started getting a nice rhythm.

Then the course headed into to closer to the headland and turned north. It started getting really choppy. I started hyperventilating a bit and decided it was better to finish than drown, so I slowed down and tried to stop my panic, and just kept swimming. You can definitely see the drop in HR on my watch graph.

Passing the last buoy and heading back in was great. Really nice to feel the water pushing me in, instead of pushing against me.  I staggered up the beach and through the finish line. My time was 51 minutes, which was ok for the 2.4km.

I was stung by about 1000 sea lice, so the next few days there was a LOT of itching.

After the swim I headed back to church lunch.  It was a week out from the brick wall.

It's been 18 days.

18 days of lying in my house, exhausted. Feeling like I've been hit by a truck, feeling like I don't have energy to do anything. Bribing myself to wash up, to have a shower, to eat something. Feeling my glands swell and throb. Feeling the temperature spikes, particularly in the first week.

I really thought I had the flu. I spent the first week feeling like I had the flu. I eventually went to the doctor after a week, and he said: "I don't think you have the flu. You should be getting better. I think you have glandular fever. I would like to do a blood test."

I burst into tears. When I was 19 I had glandular fever with a secondary throat infection. I ended up in hospital after 4 days of not being able to eat or drink. My mother drove me from Sydney to Canberra in the worst drive of my life, I was in such pain. She took me into hospital and they admitted me. That day, a doctor stuck a scalpel down my throat and cut open the massive boil I had in my throat and I coughed up pus and blood for days. I missed 3 weeks of working over summer and I was exhausted for weeks. So I knew and I didn't want it. 

Two days later, back at the doctors, with a horrible older lady doctor who I swear thought I was malingering. She told me off for slightly high cholesterol (I didn't care) and said that yes I had glandular fever. She gave me a medical certificate for a few days, but I would have to come back on Monday to get any more time off. I was frustrated because going to the dr is so exhausting. 

My church has been great. I have over 100 DVD's just sitting in my room, waiting to be watched. My favourite has definitely been "No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency". I'm almost finished - so sad that there are only 7 episodes. I've used up all my data, and so far have spent $30 extra dollars on data, but it doesn't matter. It's just money. And I'm not spending any money on food because my wonderful church has been bringing meals.  My other favourite series has been The Newsroom. I don't like it as much as No. 1, but it's still pretty cool. Especially watching how they treat news of the day and how they make editorial decisions on how to approach things.

There's two things that have been really, really frustrating. The first of course is my fitness. I've gone from training 4-5 times per week, being pretty fit, to nothing. I often can't sleep at night because my usual stress management (exercise) is gone and I have absolutely no energy. I am pretty worried about my weight too - I rely on the amount of exercise to counteract my bad eating to some extent. And my weight is slowly increasing.

The other thing is work. No one knows how to do my job. I'm having to delegate a fair bit, and to give you an idea it took over 4 hours to delegate the new leader training. I only went to half a day, and I spent yesterday absolutely shattered.  I missed the practice sessions, I missed getting to know the leaders.

Today I spent 30 minutes on the phone with my boss explaining bits of my job that others could do, and getting him to send me a bunch of documents so I can do more myself over the weekend. It's so hard and frustrating and of course, every document takes more data and is more money.  I've made errors too, because my brain is not working properly, and that's frustrating.

It's been 18 days.

I think the other thing is: I don't know when I'll be well enough to go back to work... Monday? Will I be able to go back before Thursday's training? Will I be able to do Thursday's training? 

When will I be well enough to swim again? To go to the gym? To do boxing class?

These are all unknowns.

What is known? Well, I am loved. I am loved by my church family. I am loved by God.

I've just got to stay with that for now.