The last 12 months…

Me and my childhood friend in Texas.

The last year has been a bit of whirlwind for me. I couldn’t honestly tell you if the year has flown past or gone very slowly. It felt like a bit of both. 

All I know is that I have kept placing one foot in front of another and keeping my head above water. 

As I write this blog, I don’t think anything exciting happened, but here goes. I tried to build the business up after being away for so long. I was away from Oct – Dec 2022 helping to look after my mother. She made good recovery, but eventually she lost her fight and passed away in Feb 2023. Again, I just tried to survive! 

As we all know, the cost-of-living crisis has an effect on all small businesses all over the world and it wasn’t any different in the UK. My clinic wasn’t as booked as the previous year, but I kept at it. 

We were booked to go on holiday in October 2022 but because I was with mum, we postponed the trip to April 2023, but the holiday felt awkward. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I couldn’t relax and kept feeling very lost. I guess I was still grieving and trying to cope with mum’s loss. Even though I knew it was going to happen. It still felt rather surreal, and I had this immense feeling that I had lost the roof over my head - my protection of my mother had gone, and my father had passed away years back. I wasn’t sure how to cope so I did what I knew best, work on my business. 

During the summer months, business picked up slowly and I was doing my best to market my skills. 
I felt drained, tired and plenty of other symptoms, but I put it down to the grieving process. I could hardly write any blogs even though I had ideas. I could just about see my patients, attend my NHS clinics and then I just slept to help me cope with the following week. 

In September, a childhood friend who now lives in the States, reached out to me as she had only just found about mum. Within a short space of a time and few texts later, we decided we had to meet up. I had last seen her briefly in August 2019, but prior to that, it had been 26 years since we met up. However, on that one August night in 2019, we ended up being kicked out of a closing pub. We’d continued the conversation in the car, but then the car park was shutting down, so we eventually sat in her car on the side road near where she was staying. At 2am, my husband called me to see if I was ok as I had never stayed out this late. We just couldn’t stop exchanging our news. 

The question was where to meet up and she had fixed times of when she could take a break as she is an anaesthetist or anesthesiologist as they are known in the States. Before she could name the venue, I said I was coming to her in Texas. I didn’t want to be in the UK on mum’s birthday and it was also the time of when my mum had her fall the year before. It worked out well. 

She insisted that we stay with her even though we had barely spent any time with her in 2019 and she knew I was reluctant as I have always liked my space, so she told me that she has ample space, and I could hide from her if I needed too! After all these years, she knew me so well, and nothing had changed. 

She and her husband, as well as her beautiful and gorgeous children, went out of their way to make us feel at home and so loved. Nothing was too much effort, and we were entertained to the maximum and fed like there was no tomorrow. Texas is very much a foodie state – works like a treat for us.  

But more than that, she and I hadn’t changed, we were exactly the same people as when we were younger and we got along like a house on fire. I always knew she would be a medic of some sort. She had always been rather intelligent and as life is not always easy and she had her fair share of a few curve balls, but she rode them with grace and dignity and rose up with her head held high. All her achievements make me so proud of her! 

During the trip, I did get exhausted a lot and I put it down to grieving. I had had a blood test prior to leaving for my trip and I showed it to her – and you know, with her being so bright, she immediately told me that I had a parathyroid issue. 

Low and behold, I was diagnosed with hyperparathyroidism a few weeks later and that would explain all my symptoms of being tired, drained and generally feeling meh.... It was a relief to have a diagnosis. 

Having Hyperparathyroidism, meant that the parathyroid glands (in the neck, near the thyroid gland) produce too much of the parathyroid hormone. There are 4 small glands that make this hormone, which helps your body manage the correct balance of calcium levels it needs in the bloodstream and in tissues that depend on calcium for proper functioning. But if too much is made, it can cause your blood calcium levels to get too high (hypercalcaemia). If you have high levels of calcium in your blood, it can lead to problems if not treated such as Osteoporosis, kidney stones or heart trouble.  

After a long discussion with my consultant, I decided to have surgery to remove the one affected parathyroid gland of the four in December 2023, just before Christmas. This way I could recover during the holiday period. But what I didn’t take into account, was that I needed to be admitted overnight for the procedure. I found walking into the hospital, even just for my pre-assessment very emotional. It brought back a too many memories of the time spent with mum whilst she was in, even though, it was in a different hospital and completely different continent. I broke down completely. The nurse must have thought I was a bit crazy when all she was doing was measuring my blood pressure and taking some bloods, I had to ask my husband to accompany me. Normally, I can manage such things and am not fazed by it. I actually like my hospital work environment, but it felt too surreal. I have also been happy to accompany my parents for their appointments. I am level-headed but this time, I felt very vulnerable.  

The surgery went off without any hitches and an interesting fact, the surgeon measured my parathyroid hormone level as soon as it was removed, and the levels returned back to normal levels five mins post-excision. I thought that was magic. 

Like my previous surgeries, I took some time to feel back to my normal self, but I feel so much better and ready to face the year ahead. And I decided that I was going to attend some conferences. I wouldn’t say I am conference junkie like a fellow podiatrist colleague I admire from a far. 

I guess a lot has happened in this last 12 months when you put pen to paper.