Ain’t this the truth…

If you’d have told me a year ago that I’d have a stroke in a year’s time, I’d have laughed and said don’t be silly. Not because I didn’t think it could happen to a younger, fairly fit person, but because it would have been so unexpected.

As I found out, you cannot predict yours or other people’s future or predict the future of things outside your control and you should never take things for granted, including your life.

A year and a few days before my stroke I was celebrating winning Team Member of the Year 2018 at work. The prize was an all expenses paid trip to Dubai for 4 days with winners from the other clubs! I mean – What a prize! – I couldn’t wait!

We found out a few weeks before that our itinerary included a free day. A day to do anything. Our General Manager had mentioned he knew someone who had previously done Sky Dive Dubai.

It planted a seed!

I had always wanted to do one so I looked into it. We had group chats in our flight groups on Whatsapp but no one in my group either fancied it or could afford it. (It was just over £500). I somehow got added to a Sky Dive Whatsapp group. There were about 30 people on it. There were a few other girls who said they wanted to go earlier in the day and one had already booked it. I decided I’d do that and before I knew it, I’d booked it. You had to be sure as I don’t think they gave refunds. Out of the big group on WhatsApp, only 4 girls including me did it – I will share that memory with them forever!

I did it because it was probably a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Other things that happened in 2019 were that my partner and I moved house (big thing in life), the UCI came to our town, whether you loved it or hated it was probably once in our lifetime. I had started teaching fitness classes again after roughly a 2 year break and I started another new role at work.

I climbed Ben Nevis in August with my parents, sis and boyfriend and had a holiday in one of my favourite places, The Algarve!

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A lot happens in our lives over the course of a year! Good and bad! I guess we just go through life, living it the best we can, hopefully having no regrets, maybe not appreciating as much as we should, or showing gratitude enough and not knowing or even thinking about whether something may come along to change it in a split second.

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This is such a great quote and I think relates so well to the first quote I posted on this blog.

“Look around you, appreciate more, take time, because life moves fast and if you’re not careful you’ll miss it”.

I am guilty (I know I’m not alone), in the fact that I don’t stop. My daily routine being to get up, get ready, go to work, do my shift, work a bit longer probably, get home and usually chill out and fall asleep. If I could help cover classes I did, if I could cover a shift, I did. I’m the “yes” girl. I’d see friends and do things outside of work but honestly, I was sometimes too tired to really enjoy myself.

I think a lot of people will probably be similar to me in the sense that work makes up the majority of their lives. If I couldn’t take part in something or I couldn’t go somewhere, it will usually have been because I was working. I don’t know how many times in my life I have said no because of work. But actually, I don’t think I ever minded because I love my job.

Does anyone go to their job and actually feel grateful every day and fully appreciate the fact that they have a job? How many times have you said/thought, “I just can’t be bothered today” or “I need a break” or “I need another holiday”?

I know I am lucky to have a job I enjoy, I have transferable skills meaning I can slot into different roles, I have great colleagues and they are supportive in what I want to do and have been supportive after my stroke. But did I take time to have gratitude for these things regularly? The answer is ‘no’ because work is nearly an every day event and I need to work, I enjoy it. Does this mean that we shouldn’t look at work as something to appreciate though? …. I think not!

Have you ever been somewhere or done something when afterwards you think, “I need to go there again” or “I need to do that again to take in what just happened”?

The big one that jumps out for me is my Sky Dive. When my feet touched down one of the first things I said was “Can I go back and do it again?”. You can’t slow down time and the Sky Dive itself is over in about 10 mins max. I wanted to go back up to be able to take more of it in. That very much was that life moves fast and you can only really take in so much in the amount of time and at the speed it happens.

How many of us appreciate holidays? Going abroad or somewhere away from home, somewhere new and different, but don’t see the beauty around us where we are already every day and wouldn’t even consider staying where we live for a holiday? I used to only take annual leave when I had booked to do something or go away. I never just took a week off to stay at home.

When I left LGI, it was a freezing but beautiful sunny day. I remember looking at everything outside the ambulance on the way to the ward in Harrogate with so much appreciation and I was grateful to be looking at it.

When I got home to my parents. I noticed the silence because the ward was never silent. I’m not sure I’ve ever noticed silence before like I did then. It was strange but I appreciated not hearing anything and because I was still recovering, I think it did me good.

I slowly jogged 5k the other day, I am proud of this. I’m so grateful that I am able to do this so soon after having a stroke. I mean, it’s pretty incredible how I’ve bounced back physically. Mainly, I have to thank the speedy work by my colleagues and the NHS who worked so quickly, but I need to give myself credit that I’m motivated to try things and I’m learning to be present in the moment with what I’m doing and just doing what I can.

I think my stroke has made me look at things differently. If I’d been ill before, I would have been rushing back to work as soon as I could – probably going back whilst still ill.

After suffering a major traumatic brain injury, I have been forced to slow down. I’m still in recovery & may be for a long time. I have to allow time and patience. I have been given a chance to appreciate things I never took time to before. Albeit from scary circumstances, but to enjoy having time at home, going for walks, exercising for myself again but also be able to rest and take some time for self-care when I need to.

Due to Covid-19, my recovery has been slowed down even more now.

I do worry about what happens next. How will I cope in busier and louder places? Will I manage ok back at work? But I’ve realised I don’t need to worry about this until lockdown lifts and really it depends what that looks like as well.

Covid-19 has not happened at the best time in my recovery. Some days it’s hard and it’s upsetting, most days it’s okay. I’m not sure if I believe in these things, but maybe my stroke happened for a reason? Could it have happened for me to learn to have more respect for my life and what/who I have in my life?

Going back to the first quote and the Ferris Bueller quote and thinking about Covid-19 now, I think a positive to be taken is that it has made us all be able to appreciate what we have more. If people are still working, they are finding new ways to do their jobs from home or they are part of the force of Key Workers, helping to keep us running and saving lives in the NHS. We have been given time to look around us and maybe question what our lives should “normally” look like, maybe what we’d like them to look like, what we should appreciate more and take more time for gratitude. I think in our lifetime, this will be the only time we are able to do this. When I had my stroke, I felt a little alone. No one can understand what I’d been through and what was going on in my head and the uncertainty you feel about challenges and your next steps … now it feels like a lot of people are on the same page as me which is a little bit of a comfort.

As humans we strive to better ourselves. We expect more of ourselves and of our lives, we try to make the most of life, advise each other to live each day as if it’s your last, on New Year’s Eve we say “here’s to another great year or better year”, if the previous hadn’t gone so well.

Why not make a vow now to enjoy the present more, enjoy the days as they come and take life one day at a time. Yes, we’ll plan things in advance eventually, but let’s not worry about the future right now, think about it when that moment comes. It might look differently for a while. I feel this after my stroke but I think everyone will after Covid-19.

I’ve started using an app to teach myself how to meditate and each day it asks you to think about what you’re grateful for and list 3 things. These have included people/things you’re grateful for, what you’re grateful for about yourself and 3 things you’ve done in the last week which you’ve done well and why you’re grateful for them.

I try to do it in the morning. It sets the day up knowing you have things to be positive about. Even if things don’t go well, you can go back to those 3 things you’ve listed during the day.

As the title of this blog says, “nothing will be the same in a year”. Let’s have hope especially during the current pandemic that this is true!

Stay Positive and Stay Safe! 🌈❣🌈

Thank you for sharing/reading 🙏🙏🙏