It's been a while since the last update, but not without good reason. Jumping back to last Saturday, I woke up, had a couple of slices of toast for breakfast, but then proceeded to feel decidedly dodgy for the rest of the day. I spent much of it with Ant and Michael Ritchie down Chapel St, looking at countless clothes, CDs, books, and MIchael trying to pick up store staff. At the end of it all, I came home and went to bed as I felt very drained, and wanted to get some rest before Michael and Jimmy came over. Jimmy had said on the phone earlier that they weren't going out, but were restless, and so I invited them over to catch up. I should've known better. Before long, Ant, Jimmy and Michael were getting ready to go out while I stuck to my guns, feeling ill and financially not able to justify the night out, and went to bed.
All too fortunate as, at 7.05 am on Sunday morning, there was a loud, aggressive banging on the door, like someone would make if they were about to be murdered. I got up, immediately realising it wasn't Ant, and asked who it was.
"Yeah, can we get you to move your cars? We're here to fix the roof."
...at 7.05AM ...on a Sunday morning.
I looked out the window, and convinced it was legit, went and moved the car. I can't remember the exact wording, but made some comment along the lines of "it would've been good if I knew you were coming", only to be told the landlord had said he would tell us. Turns out he had told Andrew upstairs at 9.30 the night before, but no mention of time or anything. I was not happy.
When I got up on Monday, I did feel decidedly 'surreal', for want of a better term, but thought not much more of it. On Tuesday however, I awoke feeling very tight across my chest. As the day progressed, a pain began to develop around my side and back, and by the end of the day at work, I was feeling in a bit of pain and a bit short of breathe. I left work early and came home to lie down, only to find the pain rapidly increasing to the point where I could not lie down anymore without pain shooting up and down my torso. I was confused, fearing that it might be some sort of heart issue, as my family has a history of heart problems. I had made an appointment for the doctor the following morning, but decided that it was perhaps best to go to the emergency at The Alfred Hospital.
Arriving, I was taken quickly through to the doctors area, given oxygen and painkillers while they ran an ECG, which showed my heart was fine. Xrays showed that it wasn't a collapsed lung. Blood tests also ruled out a few things. By the end of the night, the doctor told me that it was either a sever chest infection, or a blood clot on my lung. I'm sure you can guess which one I was hoping for. I was told to stay in overnight, and they gave me this quiet little area just off to the side where I could sleep in a real bed. I only called the nurse twice during the night for painkillers, but the pain was so intense that it was waking me up and keeping me tossing around in pain as it felt like muscles going into spasm inside me.
After my tests of Wednesday morning, they gave me the clear on the blood clot and let me go. I was home for not more than four hours when the pain began again, and I found myself back in at the Alfred, this time leaving later that evening with scripts for painkillers to help with the anti-biotics. I don't think I have slept so much for so long after that, spending most of Wednesday and Thursday totally knocked out. Friday, I began to feel like my old self again, although I did decide to go and see my doctor for a second opinion.
He agreed with what the doctors had come up with. I asked him why it was so painful for a chest infection, and he pointed out that I kept pointing right next to my spine whenever I was talking about the muscle spasms. "Where do you think the nerves for your body are housed?", he asked me. "Oh yeah", I replied. "That kinda makes sense now."
Friday night, I woke up again in the middle of the night in pain, wondering how much longer this routine was going to go for. Fortunately, on the Saturday, while I felt very fatigued during the day, I slept well that night without waking up once. And now, I am about to head to bed before going back to work tomorrow. I was initially going to take tomorrow and Tuesday off prior to all this happening, just to have some recoup time. Guess, since all I was going to do is sleep and relax, those days off are redundant now; except for Tuesday as I am taking Ant into hospital for his tests. He has been in a bit of pain too lately, and so we're hoping we can both wrap these up over the next few weeks and get back into healthy lifestyles. God knows, I really saw myself without my top on for the first time in ages recently, and it was truly disturbing and upsetting. They say nothing inspires you like seeing yourself naked, and I do entirely agree. I need to shed some of this weight, moreso cause I need to do it for me. I feel happier when i'm fit and feeling like i'm taking care of myself, and lately, i've just let myself go. Time to get on top of it.
Had an phone call the other night from Kylie Martin too, who I used to work with at FMR. I have so much time for her, considering she and I were great friends when we worked together, and were laughing on the phone about some of the times we shared... trapped together in a hotel room in Brisbane at the start of Kylie's "On a Night Like This" tour... my Minxy McMinx nicknames for her... the conferences... some of the people we worked with... it really felt like a golden period of my life spent during those few years and, sadly, ones that cannot be recreated again, even if we were to try. Makes you appreciate that sometimes you don't realise what an amazing time you're having until it is viewed in retrospect, and then you wonder why you didn't make more of it... but that's just life and the way it works.
