I have spent the last 2 months lost down a rabbit hole of illness after one or two nasty viruses (probably Covid and then flu) gave me a nasty case of usual antibiotics resistant pneumonia which was hiding from the usual tests so went untreated for weeks leaving me with severe asthma.  This is poor timing on my body’s behalf when the NHS is completely on its knees so my nerves are shot at the moment, it makes it a million times worse when there is no guarantee that you will be able to access the medical care you need. After a long stint of steroids and the right antibiotics and I have my beautiful clear and easy breathing lungs back. It has opened my eyes to what life is like for those with chronic, severe breathing problems and I am no stranger to health issues.

 My last year of university was plagued by issues with nausea and vomiting every time I ate something or if I didn’t eat enough after a nasty bout of food poisoning after eating 2 dodgy ice-creams from the same outside freezer in Thailand (that’ll teach me to eat 2 ice creams in a row! Actually, it didn’t). I have forgotten a lot of how awful that was but I do remember wishing desperately to be able to eat normally again and that once I could, it was the best thing ever which I quickly took for granted again. My 30s were spent with post viral issues- now known as Long Covid when contracted after Covid- and an undiagnosed health condition POTS, courtesy of dengue fever (which I also picked up from Thailand, this time I was being good though living as a monk in a Buddhist monastery- Long dengue?) which left me at my worst completely disabled and hardly able to walk or be anything other than horizontal. Being upright even sat in a chair was like a form of torture. That went on for longer and have only got it back in the last couple of years (which was a helluva fight and I am very lucky I have because most people left undiagnosed as long as me never do get it back) and so I am still revelling in the sheer joy of being able to move my body as I desire through space and when at one point climbing the stairs was like climbing mount Everest for me. I’ve started learning to play tennis which is the first time I’ve been able to do a regular sport in over 10 years and it still feels like I’ve won the lottery.

 I had been feeling a little bit sorry for myself with all the asthma issues because I’ve also still got a slipped disc and a trapped nerve which I did in July (turning 40 is so great!) which I knocked back out again thanks to all the coughing although at least it didn’t come close to the pain I had in July and the 2 days high on codeine gave me some distraction from my asthma. But then I met with a group of friends and was quickly left feeling grateful for the health I do have. One has already had to battle cancer and recently had to have a hysterectomy and is due a mastectomy soon due to having a gene which causes cancer, and her sister who has breast cancer at the moment, is due an operation because they’ve lost her port in her body somewhere.  There is nothing like hearing the stories from other people who are struggling with worse to put things in perspective for you and to make you feel grateful for what you do have.

Which is what I am doing here.  If you can take a deep breath and fill your lungs fully with glorious oxygen you are blessed and that is something to celebrate every single day. If you can move your body at will through space whenever and wherever you want, you are one of the richest people on this earth. If you can eat and enjoy a delicious plate of food and it nourishes and sustains you and doesn’t leave you in pain or being sick, you are so fortunate. If you don’t spend most of your days in pain or have a health condition or cancer, you are so privileged. If you have the energy to live your days to the full as your heart desires, how lucky are you?

 And yet there you are, worrying about the small things, constantly striving for something you think you need to have in order to be happy which really in the grand scheme of things, do not matter. Thinking of what is missing in your life, what you are lacking, what gives you dissatisfaction because you don’t have enough and you need more. If you have your health, the world is your oyster and yet you have no idea what a treasure you hold. How you do the things with ease that someone else needs so much willpower and strength to accomplish. We take our health for granted until we lose it.  So, celebrate all the things you do have, all the things you take for granted, because someone out there would give anything to have what you have, someone out there is fighting and suffering and struggling just to manage what you do without a second thought. Don’t let it be wasted on you by not appreciating it. Don’t wait until you lose your health and it’s too late to really honour and respect and rejoice in your beautiful, precious body and what it does for you. Every single day you wake up with your health is a joyous day, a day of limitless possibility, a day of freedom, a day of ease, a day of feeling well, a day where your soul and heart can do whatever they desire.

 by Kat Teall