When life gives you lemons…

As the time for publishing my May Happy List quickly approaches I felt I needed to do a small life update. Long time readers will know that the monthly Happy Lists are a positive place to share all the great things, big and small, that have happened through out the month. For a pessimistic person like myself, it’s great to gather all my positive thoughts into one place and have something to look back on over time. While naturally each month tends to have it’s ups and downs, very rarely do months go as badly as this one so while I want to try and pluck some positives out for my Happy List coming later in the week, I think it’s also important to share how this month has really gone. 

I desperately don’t want to come across as moaning and all woe is me but this has honestly been one of the worst months. I’ve always been honest with everything I’ve spoken about on here and it didn’t sit right with me to publish a Happy List full of great things (and despite everything, there have been some great things) without being real about how the month has gone. 

So I left April and rolled into May with a sickness bug, I’d just started a new job in a primary school a week earlier so I was hardly surprised, but also because of that reason I stupidly went to work whilst being really ill. After only being there a week, there’s no way I could’ve took time off. The bug took over a week to get over and it meant I had to miss out on going to a beer and cider festival with my mum that we’d had planned for ages. I was left lacking in energy and feeling a little fed up from being so ill, losing a fair amount of weight and missing out on something fun. 

Just as I was recovering from the sickness bug I found out one of my Grandma’s had had an accident and was in hospital in a pretty bad way. Obviously, this came as a huge shock as prior to the fall she was pretty fine (as fine as you can be in your mid 80’s). Over a week her condition deteriorated and by the time I went to visit her there was basically no chance of recovery. I spent a Friday evening sat at the hospital waiting for the inevitable to happen. Eventually I went home as it wasn’t something I really wanted to sit and watch. A few hours later, my Grandma passed away.

At the same time as I was visiting my Gran, my throat started to feel a bit sore, I put it down to the long day, not having much to drink and feeling tired. I was positive that after some rest I’d feel fine. The next morning I woke up not only to the news of my Gran passing but to my tonsils feeling like I’d got two tennis balls wedged in my throat. I spent the whole of my Saturday in bed, sleeping lots, not eating and barely drinking. The next day when I woke up my tonsils felt even worse, I couldn’t swallow and was having trouble breathing so we ended up taking a trip to A&E, where at first they thought I had an abscess on one of my tonsils meaning I’d have to be admitted to hospital. Luckily I didn’t and I was prescribed antibiotics. After a couple of days I started to feel much better, I don’t normally get along well with antibiotics thanks to my already dodgy digestive system but I seemed to be fine until after about 5 days of taking them, then it hit me and it was just something else to deal with.

When I finally thought it was all over, my immune system decided to fail me once again and I ended up with a chesty cough and cold. I spent around a month being ill, it was just one illness after the other. Thankfully the cough and cold have almost cleared up now and I don’t feel ill. I’m hoping this is the end of it because it’s been completely draining. When life gives you lemons it’s not always easy to make lemonade.

Now I’ve got all that off my chest, normal service shall resume and the latest Happy List will be heading your way soon!