Mestiso Manifesto #15

Just a short note: This will be a two part post, so if you want to skip this one about feelings and wait for the one more grounded in my arts practice that I'll release in the coming week, by all means. If you would like to read please be aware that If you’re affected about content relating to death, mental health and illness, I would suggest you don’t continue. 

I have had a very strange few weeks and there have been thoughts and situations that have been very confronting for me, which has put me in a very reflective and action oriented mindset.

Just over two weeks ago I had to check myself into the emergency of my local hospital. I was experiencing severe abdominal pains which progressed into breaking out in a crazy high fever (40 degrees Celsius, which I later found out from a nurse was serious). I was in the hospital for 3 nights and 3 days where my blood was taken and tested, I had scans done, and a cast of doctors poking and prodding me. All of this led to a potential diagnosis (I call it potential because I have to return for further examination and confirmation) and having antibiotics intravenously blasted through my body multiple times a day. FYI I was diagnosed with diverticular disease, which is a lifelong condition and runs in the maternal side of my family. It’s only now after two weeks from my release that I’m starting to feel like I’m healing.

During the first 12 hours of my feverish episode, I felt something I’d never felt before. I don’t know if it was a mixture of pain, fever, lack of sleep and confusion, but I had this fear of dying and being alone. If I died in this hospital I would die here alone. I would just be a phone call to someone. Now this is something new for me, so it was confronting. Without getting into my childhood trauma, I’ve always had to take care of myself and survive on my own. As a result, I’ve taken a lot of pride in my self-sufficiency and independence, but when this was challenged in the context of my mortality and health, it completely flipped that pride on its head and changed it into an awareness of something I didn’t realise was missing.

For those of you who are close to me and know me well, you’ll know much of a nurturer and carer I am, and I tell those close people how much I love and appreciate them regularly. If someone needs me, I will drop everything for them. In this situation my thoughts were going all over the place, and I was thinking ‘who was my nurturer and carer?’. I felt like didn’t have one, I just had me. I carry my life all on my own. I have no partner, no children, and I have no relatives or family in Melbourne. I was worried about my cat and if he was okay. I didn’t even know who I could ask to check on him and feed him in my absence. I even struggled with giving the hospital administration a local emergency contact. It was all very sobering to say the least.

Eventually I was moved out of Emergency and into a regular hospital ward which I shared with 3 others recovering from their own health issues. It was hard trying to recover in a ward with other sick people and seeing them struggle. It wasn’t an environment conducive to healing. It made me appreciate that I had a condition that could be controlled and managed in comparison to people who were dealing with much more life-threatening or undiagnosable health issues than my own. This awareness gave me a level of grounding and perspective.

If you’ve spent any time in a hospital recovering, you’ll know the hospital environment can be a very demoralising place to be in. Lights and machines going on and off at all hours, unsettling noises from other patients, being woken up constantly, for a time I was just hooked up with so many cords that the nurses kept tangling me up. The nurses and doctors I had were lovely people which helped take the edge off, but ultimately, I wanted to just heal as quickly as I could to get out.

I found it hard being in that hospital as I felt isolated, alone and stressed that my life outside of the hospital was toppling over without me there to hold everything up. There was so much happening and changing and there were numerous times I almost burst into tears, but I had to remain strong for myself, because I know the moment I started crying I would have started spiralling.

Now I managed to get out about three days later, but it was due to the fact I needed to attend a funeral. The doctors would’ve kept me there longer and they were reluctant to let me out initially. I was lucky that my bloods tested clear enough that they were okay with me going but said to come back if I needed to.

After all these emotions and experiences were still floating around in my head, I was landing headfirst into more of it. I went straight from the hospital to home and then the funeral. The service was beautiful, I was glad to be there as a support to others and pay my respects.

While listening to the speeches about death, life and legacy this further exacerbated the rawness of what I was already experiencing. What was I doing with my life? Was I happy? Did I achieve what I wanted for myself? Am I serving my highest good? Am I serving others? What am I focussing my time on? What’s important to me?

Now I’m going to leave it here because there’s a lot more to delve into, and I promise it starts becoming more relevant to my practice, so I’ll release the second part to this post next week.

Thank you to everyone who has spent the time and patience reading though this post, and an extra special thank you to those who have reached out to me to check on how I am and sending me their support while I recover and adjust to this new aspect of my life.