Whirlwind week of realisations

It has been a bit of a whirlwind week this week. Much to sort, much to do, and spring has buggered off again temporarily!

I received a call last week that changed the course of my next few weeks. The hospital. I tried to find out what was happening with the knee waiting list a month or so ago, because I knew that I would only get 1 – 2 weeks notice which does not really give me enough time to sort anything out!

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I told the surgeon’s secretary my story and explained that it will take me some time to dissolve my work to other staff and reschedule everyone’s calendar to accommodate all my work. This would be no mean feat. Ensuring Ryding2Health will run smoothly without me was very important to me indeed.

In August they told me I should expect to be getting my operation date some time in November / December. So, I began pre-warning all my clients that this would happen, allowing them time to mentally prepare for the staff change that would inevitably come later.

So, When I got a call that said it was the hospital, my ears pricked up.

Purely because I had explained that I run a business and detailed how difficult ‘becoming invisible is’ she chose to call me and advance prompt me that my knee operation date had been penciled in for 23 October. I got one month notice, instead of the usual 1 week.

So, like I said, the rest of my time from there on has been taken up trying to prepare for my departure, and to be honest, it has been a lot more straight forward than I thought! I had, for many months, been quietly preparing for this day by not actively taking on new clients, I stopped massaging a number of months ago and passed those clients on to other staff, so when I finally got the date, the final few pieces of the puzzle were surprisingly easy to sort out!

Needless to say, everything else has pretty much gone out the window. Including exercise. But, it is all in place now, YAY!

So, I officially finish taking appointments on Friday 5 October, a two week handover starts Monday 8th October, with my team instructing with the new staff member in week 1, then the new staff member completely takes over in week 2, so that by Friday 19th, everything has been in place for 7 days with me in the background in case there are any glitches. I feel confident that this will continue to run smoothly and my staff are more than capable of sailing the boat as a team without me.

The plan after the operation is to be back as admin operations remotely from home as soon as I am well enough, then perhaps back on the floor after Christmas. Well, that is the plan anyway.. I like to have a plan!

What does worry me quietly is pain control. Drugs have not manage this effectively so far, so this is the only variable that I see might scupper my plans.

Interesting because look what was the 9 year timehop reminder this week as well, my very first world champs on the Gold Coast, the very same time as the Gold Coast host the world champs again for the first time since that day, 9 years ago when I was there!

I was saying to a friend in the pub yesterday: my goal used to be to be still competing on the world stage when I was in the 60+ age group. Very quickly I had to adjust that goal, now I merely hope to still be walking smoothly on both my own feet when I am in the 60+ age group. Oh how times change. Still, onwards and upwards, no point in being miserable about it is there?

Which brings me on to a very interesting talk I listened to this week, by Di Foster. She was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer 8 years ago. Yep, she is still here. The gist of her talk was that you have to grab TODAY and live life for the now, talking about her entire life perspective changed and she decided that she needed to make her limited remaining time as happy as possible. Then she realised that was impractical, so instead she chose to live in the NOW.

Her top tips were:

be grateful
make the best of today
reframe all negatives into positives
live your own life, not someone elses.

Curious. Because everything she said were things that I learned like a hammer to the head the day I got the call to say my beautiful mother Margaret had died. I felt like she was talking about a life that I already had, that I already saw. One that no one else seems to be able to see unless you have looked death in the face. I find that quite frustrating: that it takes something so extreme for us to truly see the here and now.

I hate that I cannot run any more, that top level competition was taken away from me. But I am grateful that I still wake up each morning to see tomorrow. No, really, I am REALLY grateful. My mother cannot.

Make the best of today, that is a tricky one, but I do always try to see a positive in each day. my diary has a box on each page to write the positives into and I do this religiously, so I can reflect on the week and see the true positives because otherwise that would not be my default. Which connects well to the next one.

I do my best to see positives in my situation. I cover up my knee injury so well, some people have no idea and those that do, still have no TRUE idea of the pain it causes me I don’t think. I still climb hills and ride my bike (when I can). Tomorrow is a new day.

The day I quit teaching and deliberately made myself redundant was the day I truly started living my life for ME and no one else. I was done with the stress, the chores, the hate. I had fallen out of love with the job and life is FAR too short to spend it doing stuff you hate.

So, like I said, Di Foster was preaching to the converted. It made me sad to see so many people inspired by her. That indicated they were all still stuck in the hatred and the mundane. I was also sad I had to lose my mother to make this discovery.

This is Florence Hill Lookout. I have like a million photos of this but on Saturday evening I sat on this hill and watched the sunset.