
Seven months
SEVEN MONTHS! Seven months since my last post! I would love to say I’ve been writing a book or poetry, but until October 3rd, I wasn’t a very well chicky.
As months passed and the world turned into something we didn’t recognise, many days of mine were spent looking outside focusing on two trees, one is a beautiful Blossom Tree (which naturally lost its beauty during autumn, echoing my physical state) and a giant Pittosporum (silver screen), which provided the meditation of watching its leaves and branches sway…yes a trick from the 90’s movie Phenomenon.
As the months passed, the more days I sat in front of my desktop computer looking outside (in case or when I needed Mum suddenly). Chronic headaches from a very pissed off occipital nerve became a daily thing. I had a battery pack in my tummy that supplied electrical pulses to over-stimulate the nerve, but unfortunately, the previous batteries had six to seven-year lifespans, and this one was eight!
And then 2020 happened! Yep…My neurosurgeon ordered x-rays in March (just when the Outbreak became an issue.) So more waiting to get a damn set of x-rays. I must say, the x-ray department at the hospital was great once we bit the bullet and went in. That was May/June (it could have been earlier), then we saw my neurosurgeon in July thanks to a cancellation and the fact that the battery pack had really started hurting (it should never be painful).
I should explain since January I suffered from migraines that often made me physically ill. By August I would have these migraines twice or three times within a month. As well as the headaches and migraines, I was putting up with Mr Zappy (nerve pain in my left leg and foot) as well. Headaches and Mr Zappy played off each other especially when I had vomited. I had a surgery two years ago to put a spinal stimulator in. Unaware of what it was supposed to be like, I thought it was the norm. Boy, I was wrong.
After a little setback in August, the stars aligned on Thursday, October 3rd, 2020! The surgery took almost three hours, and I’m still healing in several sites. But I’m mostly headache and most incredibly 98% Zappy free. I’m like a different woman! Sure, I get tired still and now know my limitations, but now I don’t stare outside focusing on the trees’ movements counting to ten while deep breathing…. I look outside thanking the trees getting me through days where I had sea of nausea!
And I can eat a bit of chocolate after thirteen months of cocoa abstinence!

The Tree
Swaying in the breeze
Providing me with focus
Watching your leaves swa
Reminding me to breathe through
Days where I couldn’t function.
We shared two seasons together
Where we wilted to nothing
Until we began to bloom
In the following Spring
When your pink blossoms became to life again.Jacqui James
September 2020