Being away from home always makes you appreciate the things that make home yours, so much more.
3 weeks away with a team, traveling with like and unlike minded people is a long time. I have been back just under a week and I am so happy to be home. This is my first week back in South Africa since I received my Bilharzia diagnosis. I am still processing what that all means. There is a part of me that is still scared that Chronic Fatigue was the correct diagnosis, that in a few days, I will feel exhausted, listless and develop yet another low grade infection.
I have decided that if I still feel this good at the end of this week, it’s all systems go and I am healed! It is surreal for me- Eight months of searching, tests, fighting, anger, denial, frustration and finally acceptance ‘fixed’ in just 32 hours and all thanks to an incredible friend, who happens to be one of the best sports doctor’s out there dealing in natural medicine who wouldn’t give up trying to ‘fix’ me. Who knows how much longer I would have continued on a path to nowhere in terms of healing with a snail (now named ‘Bili’) slowly destroying my health.
It has been an incredible week being back home. Things I used to take for granted, I am now so much more grateful for. Waking up before my alarm clock feeling rested, training like a normal athlete again and feeling strong, being able to push my body in training and actually achieve results with little fear of negative consequences, going to bed at a ‘normal’ time again, staying up to read a good book, the feeling of sand under my feet, wind in my hair, the salty sea in my face, a good cup of coffee with a view, community, friends, family, cats, independence and interdependence- the list goes on.
I want to continue to be grateful every day
I don’t want to forget this week, I want to continue to be grateful every day for the new lease on life God has given my body because of one friend who didn’t give up searching. I want to view the ‘inconveniences’ that life throws a me as challenges to overcome rather than something to complain about and get frustrated by. I want to live life in the freedom I have been blessed with. I want to help encourage and inspire others to live the life they have been given in freedom to express the talents God has given them. I want to be authentic in inspiring sustainable change.