Flat as a Pancake

 

My – how the month away has dragged on – and now we are dragging on coats for Autumn.  Edna O’Brien wrote the novel "August is a Wicked Month", way before wicked meant cool and bad meant good. My August has been originally WICKED = crap, tiresome or wotever. This is the first time in four months of regular blogging that I have not put up a blog because I’ve been wiped out and flat as a pancake while busy as a bee. 

These things always happen at the busiest of times. Sod’s law. 

 

I contracted Chronic Hepatitis B Virus in 1970 and although I was seriously ill in the 80′s with Chronic Active Hepatitis B, cirrohosis and liver failure I eventually gained the antibodies ( without medication ) that stopped me self infecting myself with Hep B every 6 weeks. This miraculous sero-conversion using Rebirthing Breathwork occurred in 1996. Since then I just hold the virus in my body with no real symptoms, all is manageable, but once in a while for a period of 8 -12 weeks I get sporadic tiredness, a permanent cold, arthritis, bad atheletes foot, muzzyness, dry skin, liver headaches, liver pain and waking nausea. On top of this I have had a tooth infection for over a month, 2 courses of penicillin have done nothing and at the end of this week I will have a £600 root canal performed as last resort. Compared to as it was – hospitalisation 3 times a year, vomiting for 8 hours non stop every 6 weeks plus daily nausea – it’s a piece of piss. 

 

Having had hep for nearly 40 years my immune system is severely damaged and sometimes it crashes for no reason leaving me as flat as a pancake. Better than being dead though, which doctors predicted 20 years ago but I have been told many times by medics that I defy logic and science, moving out from deaths door in an instant. In 1982 I was on the original human interferon drug trial ( that later produced synthetic interferon for Hep C carriers in 1988) – all the other people on the human interferon trial died except me. Maybe this is why I have worked so much with death and the dying. 

To understand living.

 

Because I have remained clean & sober for almost 27 years and was on the original drug trial of human interferon, doctors tell me I am the longest survivor of Chronic Hep B they know of in the UK. I often wonder how I have done this because if I had known what was before me I would have given up. During the late 80′s I had affirmations everywhere – inside my wardrobe, on my mirrors, on playback cassette tapes – including the statement "The power behind me is greater than the task ahead of me" and "don’t give up before the miracle". This spiritual approach has served me well. In AA they say that " Acceptance is the answer to all our problems ". That " this too shall pass ". And so it has. By accepting that things are happening in my body I can deal with the management of it. Denying the symptoms as they come along and ploughing on regardless is foolhardy. Another AA saying that kept me sane is " feel it, claim it, dump it " – by feeling & claiming that something is untoward allows me to handle it without focusing on what may happen. Projection as "societies drug of choice" only benefits the insurance industry. 

 

Stay in the moment, keep it in the day. 

 

I lost my phone two weekends ago, it fell out of my open bag at a gig. I contacted T-Mobile, got it blocked but have not got round to getting a new phone yet. It’s not today’s problem. This saying has kept me going for years because the childish, addictive self demands attention NOW. Having a long term health condition ( I also have angina, connected to liver damage ) has taught me to have priorities. In the bad ole days it took me 3 hours to get up in the morning, to get to a meeting then get back to bed. First things first, get the priorities right. The past month has been the same. Do what you can, listen to the body and don’t project. This too shall pass.

 

At the same time as having this health relapse I have managed all my clients, gone out socialising more than usual, slept more and had the builders in to transform my flat. No room for self pity – just get on with it. This too shall pass. I have worked the equivalent of a 3 day week for 10 years, for the past 7 years I have travelled abroad every 2 months and my life is full of creative people who don’t winge, just inspire. A wonderful life. Yes my body still feels as if I am dragging a weight around, I awake as if I have not slept but I am clean & sober throughout. Sometimes we need to sit back and other times push for extra effort, the skill is knowing when and how. I need to get away to the sun but the thought of it just brings up " wotever ", I have to push myself to get to Costa Coffee let alone the costa’s of Spain.

 

Illness is a time for contemplation and gratitude so I’m grateful that energy is returning to continue blogging my thoughts, experience, strength and hope. 

The wheel is now in motion. Flip that pancake.