All is not as I would have it be, here at Needle and Spindle.
As many of you know, I had pneumonia in April. It is normal to have a six to eight week recuperation period after such an illness before being able to resume a relatively normal life. This has not been the case for me and after a slew of doctors’ visits and medical tests, it looks like the fatigue and other symptoms I am experiencing are going to take a much longer time to resolve. For a reason unknown to western medicine, some bugs produce an extended fatigue in some otherwise completely healthy people. A dice roll of sorts. Under medical advice, I have had to take leave from my studies until early next year.
It feels like there is an ocean of tiredness inside me. It fills up my legs and arms with watery weakness and laps around the edges of my brain. The smallest walks become arduous trudges and it is hard to think, plan or remember where I put my keys, my phone, my hat. Standing for long is tricky, hanging out the washing is a major achievement and vacuuming, a bridge too far.
Fortunately, it seems that my good Man can carry even the ocean on his strong shoulders and our children lug buckets of seawater much heavier than I could have thought possible. I am buoyed up by an excellent public healthcare system, a flotilla of practical and generous friends and by the kind thoughts and wishes of readers. There are much, much worse things to have, than the inconvenience of being really tired all the time. Nevertheless, this blog space will remain a rather simple space for the foreseeable future, I may not always manage to reply to comments and there may sometimes be longish gaps between posts.
So please, continue to bear with me gentle readers while I find the Magellan for this ocean and celebrate with me, my first sustained metaphor since April!
The photographs are of Port Philip Bay just inside The Heads at Point Lonsdale, the entrance to the Port of Melbourne from the Bass Strait which lies between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. A special place.
