7. The Eye of the Storm

Period: December 2010-March 2011

Living in Wellington was the happiest time of my life. I appreciated it all the more because I vividly remembered how ill I had been until recently, and I was aware that it may come back at any time. I was still suffering from cramps and diarrhoea but it seemed easy to manage. I was living in a dorm room in the centre of Wellington, maintaining a social life, getting up at 5am to walk 5 miles to work and back each day and, towards the end of my stay, working for my accommodation by cleaning the hostel between 9pm and midnight. Thinking about it now, it seems impossible that I managed to do all that. These days just finding the energy to work full-time is sometimes a struggle.

Christmas 2010 provides a clear example of how my life has changed for both the better and worse. Having recovered from surgery and buoyed by my new found "health", I spent Christmas and New Year really letting my hair down.

For the next three months I pushed my body. I knew something wasn't quite right, but I thought that if I lived life to the fullest it might somehow disappear. If nothing else I will always have the memories of those few happy months. As the summer drew to an end, I started to look towards my next adventure, yet in the back of my mind was the constant worry of my health. Being around people who did not know me very well made it easier to hide (and to some extent ignore) the symptoms. Somehow, with close friends it feels like lying and deceit.

Not wanting to travel alone, just in case the worst should happen, I arranged to head down to the South Island with a couple of mates from the hostel. In the fortnight leading up to the grand departure, I was feeling increasingly concerned about my guts once more. The pain was becoming more severe and more persistent every day and I had vomited a few times recently.