Oh, hello. It’s been a bit empty here, hasn’t it? Sorry about that, I didn’t mean to fall off the face of the planet – well, off the face of the blog. You see, 2024 just hasn’t gone to plan.
With 2024 starting on a Monday, and me being an absolute Type A personality, I was ready to head into this year like a diver on a spring board. I’m talking blogs every week; Reels left, right and centre; yoga and journaling everyday. But life kicked me in the nuts.
I entered January with a viral infection plucked straight from the depths of hell. At this point, it had been with me since early December, filling my chest with phlegm and my head with fever all over Christmas. I was sitting up to sleep, coughing for four weeks straight, and fatigue so strong I felt like I had run 10k each day. Thankfully, it wasn’t COVID, but it certainly felt as bad.
Now, I normally don’t let a little thing like a viral infection keep me down for long. I amped up the Vitamin C, dosed up on Lemsip and let the new year begin. I managed to get some writing done here and there, between coughing fits, and even managed to enjoy starting rehearsals for a show, Legally Blonde.
However, I made it less than two weeks and two rehearsals into the new year before my appendix gave way. Yeah, not a great start.
I originally thought someone had put real milk in my morning coffee at work – as a lactose intolerant girlie, I’ve got a sensitive little belly. Then, as it got worse throughout the day, I thought my endometriosis pain was spreading. I typically get endo pain on the left side of my body, never my right, so I was grumpy that it had spread. As the evening hit, so did my intuition. Something isn’t right here – well, my body is never right due to chronic illness, but something is different. I started doing the heel drop jarring test to see what kind of pain I was dealing with; up on my tiptoes, slam heels down on the floor, check the pain. As my heels hit the floor, I felt the exact point of the pain stab through my body. Big red flag. So I of course ignored it, wrote it down due to probably endo, and went to bed.
After that, everything blurred into one. I had a rough night with a fever, nausea, and worsening pain. Then it took a lot of shoving from my husband to get me to call the doctor in the morning. Once I got to the GP, she took one look at my stomach, two prods, and gave me the swift order to go “straight to A&E, here’s a handwritten letter saying I think you have appendicitis”. Now that was a surprise. After that, it was A&E into triage, waiting back in A&E, moving over to Majors, and having a blood test. The blood test came back clear, with no appendicitis, so I was shipped off to gynaecology. Thankfully, the Gynae specialists were on it and arranged for a CT scan. One CT scan later, and we were all looking at pictures of my inflamed appendix as the clock struck midnight.
By 1pm the next day, I was lying in a hospital bed, still numb from the anaesthesia, and appendix less. I had a typical laparoscopy, everything went as well as it could be, and in a great turn of events, I was in my own bed at home by 9pm. The operation wasn’t the worst bit – I mean, I was out like a light and full of high octane pain medication. It was the recovery. I have never injured myself or had an emergency operation to this extent. I’ve always been able to push through or adjust in some manner, but not this, not this recovery.
The first week of recovery made me feel like human mashed potato. I was taking four hourly doses of high pain medication and mega anti-inflammatories, crying if anything touched my skin, and sleeping for twenty out of twenty four hours. My husband spent his week trying to get me to eat and drink water, and he was also on bandage cleaning duties. The second week involved a lot more sitting up, sleeping for sixteen out of twenty-four hours, and running out of anti-inflammatories. I managed to walk to the end of the road though, so that was the win of the week! By the third week, fatigue was kicking my butt, but the pain had mainly subsided. I was starting to show glimmers of myself again, and watched too many seasons of Criminal Minds to count. When the fourth week rolled around, I was back up and back at work in an office capacity. In hindsight, I really should have taken the fourth week off to allow the fatigue to dissipate, but hey, hindsight is a wonderful thing. It took about three weeks after being back at work for my body to adjust, to start yearning for mental stimulation again, like writing or reading.
Once I was back to work and appendix-less, I assumed my year could properly start in the capacity I wanted. But life is never that easy, and it was time for my chronic anxiety disorder to start playing ball. I mean, it makes complete sense that it would rear its head. A lot of my anxiety triggers are health based due to my chronic conditions, so recovering from a serious operation would bring up some of those feelings. Recovering also hit life hard in so many areas; I was out of the loop with friends, couldn’t work on my business, looked and felt physically different, felt like I was letting others down at work – the list could (and did) go on.
I’m not afraid to say it, I’m never shy of showing what life with anxiety is like, but it was a rough few weeks. I was crying everyday, finding the smallest thing triggering anxious thoughts, struggling with the most basic tasks at work. But, I got through it. As my body healed and got back to nearly normal movement, the anxiety lessened and lessened until I was back to my normal, still-anxious-but-not-as-anxious self.
Here’s me thinking that March is when it all suddenly comes up Milhouse, but that would be too easy. March arrived with a flurry of hormones and an endometriosis flare-up. Well, “suspected endometriosis” flare-up that is. You can only get diagnosed with endo through laparoscopic surgery and there’s a looooooong waiting list for that. But I’ve bene living with symptoms for about six years so me and my medical team are pretty convinced I am part of the endo crew.
For two weeks, I was having a combination of insomnia, sciatic pain, swollen stomach, pelvic pain, hormone fluctuations, and nausea. Followed by a week of PMS and a period and BAM, back to nearly normal.
And now? Now we are in April. I just had a blissful double Bank Holiday where I walked a hill with my parents, had games nights with my husband, explored with my best friend, sang and danced in rehearsal, and spent time writing, journaling, and making art. For the first time this year, I feel like myself. Sure, I’m in some form of pain from the endo, that’s an everyday occurrence, but I have accepted that.
Spring is here, it’s a new season, the buds are blooming. I’m nearly one hundred days into the new year and yet my new year has only just begun. So if you are feeling like your 2024 hasn’t gone the way you wanted, you are in good company. Maybe this is your sign to accept that that’s okay and start it again now. Let’s pick ourselves up, smell the blossoms that the season brings (and the hay fever it brings too), admire the April showers, and let 2024 start here.
Thanks for reading, I love you
Rosie x
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