A story: when life takes its toll

A warning, this is one of my longest blogs. It was only recently that I realised that I had never shared this story with the Brave Smart Strong community. If one person finds it helpful, I consider that a success.

Like many people I hadn’t heard of self-care until relatively recently, I’d say the last 10 years. In 2005 I had a health crisis, and another one in 2006, as well as the usual life hurdles. Over the next seven years I got on with things and just as everything fell into place, I fell apart. I know now that the way my mind and body responded happens to a lot of people whether it’s a health issue, the sickness or death of a loved one, a traumatic experience, and the many other hurdles life throws at us. We run on adrenalin for months and even years (the fight or flight response), we compartmentalise, and when we finally breathe out the full toll can lead to a feeling of emptiness and a breakdown.

In my 20s I worked hard, 12-14 hour days pretty usual, and played hard, using alcohol to de-stress. I am fortunate my work took me all around Australia, to the outback on long road trips, capital cities and many other places in between. In my late 20s I grabbed my last chance to do a working holiday before ageing out, and backpacked through Europe, eventually landing in London and spending two years there working and travelling more. It was an experience I am truly grateful for. I made life long friends, it taught me many life skills and importantly, resilience. Most of us know that travel can be pretty bloody uncomfortable and many, many things go wrong, particularly on a tiny budget.

In my early 30s I faced my own mortality. Newly married and 26 weeks pregnant I started to feel sharp pain in my right side. It worsened over a couple of days. I went to the emergency department and was checked over. The medical staff thought the baby could be pressing on some nerves. I was discharged, and headed home thinking the pain just had to be tolerated until the baby moved. We invited friends over for drinks and nibbles, and after 15 minutes of chatting, catching them up on our hospital adventure, the pain intensified and then became unbearable. I excused myself and went to the bathroom where I tried to talk myself out of the pain. I lay on the bathroom floor wondering how I was going to survive. In the end I dragged myself back out to my husband and guests, and explained that I needed to get back to the hospital. I remember the car trip, crying and saying to my husband that I didn’t see how I was going to live through whatever was happening. Very dramatic!

Arriving back at the hospital I was immediately rushed through to maternity. After all the drama in the car, flooded with adrenalin, I told the doctor the pain wasn’t that bad. I was making small talk, joking and laughing. The doctor thought it might be my appendix but said I was too chipper so he wasn’t sure. I now know that I have a very high pain threshold. My husband knows not to let me ‘fake’ being okay in front of medical staff anymore. There was a decision to keep me in overnight for monitoring and I was given medication for the pain. The next morning my husband and I were told that my blood work was showing there was an infection. It confirmed the doctor’s view that my appendix had ruptured. Surgery was a priority.

There was a 5% chance that during the surgery the baby would abort and die, however without surgery both of us would die. Within an hour on a Sunday morning there were two surgeons and two obstetricians ready to perform and supervise the surgery. I was given medication to reduce the risk of going into labour. That’s the last I remember. The surgery was successful, the worst fears in relation to the baby were not realised, and my husband and I breathed a big sigh of relief. Little did we know that we were not yet in the clear. The infection from the appendicitis was still in my body. I couldn’t keep any fluids or food down. I was vomiting so much green bile the medical staff inserted a nasal gastric tube to try to pump it out, unsuccessfully. After a couple of days there was concern my heart was about to fail, so a drip pumped medication to reduce the risk.

In the two hourly checks, the nursing staff would use a machine to listen to the baby’s heart. As my conditioned worsened they cheerily let me know each time, ‘baby’s fine’. We nicknamed baby ‘the weed’. A ray of light in a grim situation. And then, I started to recover. Thank God. Within 24 hours I was discharged from hospital. Still very unwell, a week later I returned to work. I had to go back, if I didn’t I wouldn’t meet the requirements for maternity leave and pay, and the money meant a lot to our family budget so I didn’t question it and just got on with things.

At 35 weeks pregnant I finished up at work. My husband, then in the Army, had been posted to Canberra and we packed up our apartment in Sydney and moved. Unpacking in the January heat, pregnant, my ankles were swollen, my back ached and my tummy was regularly tightening with Braxton hicks. Soon after our baby came, early and underweight, but overall healthy.

My husband’s posting to Canberra was for a 12-month course. We asked for a week’s paternity leave but this was denied. So a few days after the birth of our little boy, my husband dropped me home from hospital to an empty house. I was lucky that my mum and dad were able to visit for a week, and my mother-in-law.

Our baby, Tom, was a fretful baby. He slept in two hourly intervals. I was breast feeding but new to it all. What I didn’t realise was that while I was settling into motherhood, my body was working against me. I had developed a condition called Hashimoto’s disease. My immune system was creating antibodies that were attacking my thyroid cells. My thyroid was not working well and stopped working altogether. My hair fell out, the backs of my hands were covered in sores and scabs, I felt constantly nauseous, my milk supply for baby was compromised (the reason poor Tom was fretful, he was starving), and I was exhausted. Sadly a lot of these symptoms are very common post pregnancy so they didn’t raise any alarm bells. 2006 was one of the worst years of my life. I remember feeling so alone and lonely that year. My husband was barely around and I know that when he was, he barely recognised this version of me as the woman he had married. He hid in his studies and online gaming.

It took ten months to get diagnosed. I finally showed up at my GPs surgery sick and exhausted. I said that if this was tiredness from having a baby, please put me out of my misery now. I didn’t see how I could go on. Thankfully, my GP took me seriously and didn’t think I was just another hysterical and sleep deprived new mum. I had blood tests and was diagnosed a few days later (there were other tests to rule out thyroid cancer). My GP explained I was very sick. She recommended bed rest for at least four weeks. I laughed.

My husband was scheduled to travel overseas for four weeks as part of his Army course. I didn’t think it possible that the Army would let him stay and look after me, and I was right. He left a few days after I was diagnosed. Thankfully, again, my parents flew in for a couple of weeks to help out, and then Tom and I muddled through for the rest of the time he was away.

In the year Tom was born we moved again, as we had bought our first house which was very exciting. My husband was denied leave to help, so I did the move myself, with a newborn, sick with the flu and an undiagnosed auto-immune disease. In 2007 we moved back to Sydney. The tenuous rental market in Sydney meant that over the next three years we moved every year, until we scraped together enough money to buy the worst house on a good street for the bargain price of $970,000. That’s Sydney for you.

In this period there were also two miscarriages, and luckily two more babies. In between babies I worked, juggling nannies and childcare (when we could get it). Just as I thought we were settled in Sydney, my husband got a great offer of a job in Canberra. Could we move again? I agreed on the basis that we did a treechange. After Sydney I was dreaming of countryside and greenery, and reconnecting with nature. Another 12-month rental on a rural property. For that year we were sick off and on and later found out our water supply was contaminated with arsenic as the wrong type of wood had been used to construct an upstairs balcony and the run off into our water tank was toxic. As a result our year old baby girl often vomited and had two a-febrile seizures.

We were motivated to buy in our new rural idyll. We finally found a property and moved, again – our seventh move in seven years. I unpacked, breathed out and then promptly fell in a heap. I was constantly on the verge of tears. I was so confused about what was happening because in my heart I felt like finally everything had fallen into place. In the end I decided to visit my GP and was reluctantly referred to a psychologist under a mental health treatment plan. At the time I felt so ashamed.

Getting to the psychologist was an exercise in itself. I had one child at school but still had two at home with me. I traded babysitting with a friend. It was a three hour round trip to visit the psychologist from my home – an hour of travel, an hour for the appointment, an hour driving back. I only managed three sessions before the logistics just seemed too hard. We were also $175 out of pocket after each visit, on top of the medicare rebate. I felt guilt about the cost of this to our ever pressured household budget. However, in those sessions I started to learn about how the brain works. It sparked my interest in mental health, and I studied up on how the brain, mind and body were connected.

I also learned about self care. How very simple actions like eating well, sleeping, exercising, making time to be with friends and family, and taking time out for yourself, were so important to maintaining good mental health. I learned how my body and mind were exhausted and needed time to recover, and that took some time.

And finally this whole journey led me to create Brave Smart Strong and the Find Your Calm bracelet. I thought if I could help other people understand and make time for self care, if one person could avoid what I went through or at least take positive action so it wasn’t that bad, that could only be a good thing.

My advice is to remember to take care of yourself. To also be kind to yourself. That self care is not selfish, it’s not saying ‘me first’ rather ‘me too’.

Take care.

L x

If any of what I have written has brought up issues for you please reach out for help. There are services out there, Lifeline on 13 11 14 and Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636 and www.beyondblue.org.au