This is a different type of blog to my usual ramblings. Not much to with writing, although I wish the contents were from a novel and not a real life lived experience. I’m all for research and experiences to help make my writing/story more authentic but this is one I would have happily passed on.
It all started, not once upon a time but once upon a normal Saturday morning, on the weekend before we were due to fly to Madeira for our first holiday abroad for 2 years, due to the bloody, boring, flipping, had enough pandemic! I’d been doing well health wise after catching covid before xmas. On boxing day I’d had a word with myself and was determined not to develop long covid – I’m not sure there is much you can do about it really but I’ve suffered post-viral fatigue before and I wanted to do everything I could to avoid it, so I started doing yoga with Adriene on YouTube and instead of going at it like ‘a bull at a gate’ I was sensible and took my time, didn’t do any moves which were too much. I upped my walking but again sensibly and ate well. By the Saturday in question, I’d lost 8.5lb and was feeling fantastic. ((People don’t need your whole medical history, Peachy. Why don’t you just post your NHS log in and let people read your records – longer than a George RR Martin Novel!))
Saturday morning I woke up with an indescribable pain in right shoulder blade. In hindsight I think I must have simply slept funny and ended up with a trapped nerve. It was agony, so much so it made me feel sick and groan and swear quite a lot. I had a failed trip to the bathroom to be sick – didn’t happen and went back into the bedroom. I perched myself next to the other half and said, I feel dizzy’ I’ve fainted 3 times in my life and I pride myself on the few seconds notice I give people before I hit the deck. What happened in the next few seconds – what felt like hours, can only be described as a near death experience. I’ve tried to reconcile it in my mind that I’m just being dramatic but since the other half was there to witness it, I cannot accept it was anything but that.
When I fainted, I saw a swirling red light ((That will be the devil calling for all the terrible things you’ve done to your characters over the years! Or maybe just the blood rushing to your head!)) I confess I’m not religious in any way, shape or form, and this colour/image only made me think of Sauron and the ‘one eye’. Basically, I was Frodo, fighting evil. As I said, I have fainted before and have never experienced anything like this. In that moment, I knew if I didn’t fight, I wouldn’t wake up. It was that simple. At this same moment in the real-world, my other half said after I’d been arching my back and gurgling. I remember trying to shout to him and tell him he needed to do something, so maybe that was the gurgling. At this point, he said I stopped breathing – for once i wasn’t full of hot air! He then blew into my mouth and a few seconds later, the red light gave way to a blurred vision of my hero talking into his phone as he had called 999. I cannot tell you the relief I felt at seeing his face. I knew at that moment I had a fighting chance. I was awake. I could fight. I was from Yorkshire after all and pretty darn stubborn and I wanted to go on bloody holiday!
Lots of sobbing followed as the relief washed over me. I’m not known for crying – if I manage once every 10 years it’s classed as emotional – the emotions of a swinging brick my friend says! I’m just not a crier. But I think I poured out at least a hundred years’ worth. I remember I kept saying sorry, for what for I’m not sure. Nearly dying on him? Causing a drama just before our holiday? I don’t know.
The 3 paramedics arrived very quickly. The NHS are the best! And they tried to calm my breathing down. The breathing exercises I’d being doing as part of yoga helped, but it took a while for the panic to settle as they hooked me up to various machines to see what the heck was going on. Unsurprisingly, I was given a clean bill of health. I said I’d felt the healthiest I’d been in a while and my body stats reflected this. I must have simply passed out due to the pain and who knows why it went so dramatic after that. Those who know me, know I walked on a fractured hip which I broke doing the Yorkshire 3 peaks. I did the damage after twisting my knee on the top of Ingleborough and had to walk the rest of the way with all the pressure on one leg. This is what we decided fractured when they found the fracture 7 months after my constant moaning, hospital visits and ice packs on my ass for months to help with the pain. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I can handle a bit of pain – not to say in a macho way but it shows how extreme the pain was if it indeed was the reason I flaked out.
So, drama over. Paramedics gone, after completing a ridiculous amount of paperwork which they honestly need to sort out – what a waste of their time to have to duplicate information. They had to type everything into an iPad and then write it all out! In this day and age – I ask you! I get the data is needed for your records and if anything else happened… but really, this could be made easier for them. They were all fantastic even though the emergency was over when they arrived. I had a holiday to go on after all.
The upshot of all this, well I’m not really sure. These near-death experiences are supposed to make you re-evaluate life and I guess it has. To be honest I’m pretty happy with my life in general so there are no big changes which need making but we have been thinking of a bit of a big move for a couple of years so maybe now is the time to do it. We often come up with a plan and then it takes a few years to come to fruition. So, maybe this plan will come off and maybe it won’t. I will say if you’ve read all of this, life is very short and sometimes it takes something shocking in life to happen to be brave enough to make that change. So, if you’ve been meaning to change something, then if you can, do it. I’m not going to say ‘live every day as your last’ because that is just not sustainable but if you’ve been putting something off then try and do it. Even if it’s a small thing like reading an extra chapter of your book per day or finally booking that holiday, seeing family and friends right up to the big changes. Go for it.
Signing off in a minute you will be pleased to hear. But first… BOOK NEWS!
Book 2 in my fantasy series Festival of Time is on target to go live mid-March and I’ve made a start on reading book 1 & 2 so I can finish book three to ensure consistency and that all the stories lines are tied up. I must admit when I was trying to regulate my breath on the bedroom floor, I did have a wave of a thought which said I needed to finish my fantasy series – how would my fans cope if I didn’t finish it! I will also be doing a free promotion on book one, so keep your eyes peeled on social media. I have my new book being published with Saga Fiction in March, so it’s going to be a busy one. Just hope my trapped nerve buggers off so I can write. Currently typing this with an ice-pack on my back – sigh!
Take care out there everyone. X
((Glad you’re still here Peachy and we both didn’t fade away. We have much to do!))
C.L. Peache 