I have already touched a little bit on my well-being, but as I am cooped up on my sofa for the seventh day in a row now, I have a lot to get off my chest. It’s been an absolute whirlwind battling with my body this year and it came out of nowhere. Literally.

I vividly remember being in the gym one Wednesday evening in March – not unlike most weeks prior. I had recently hit the milestone of training for a year in the women’s only gym I go to about 10 minutes from my house, having found a real sense of community at the space and actually found a love for training I never knew I had in me. During this particular session, I remember coming down from doing pull-ups on the bar and holding my back in pain. The trainer asked if I was okay and I, almost convincingly, said yes. Back pain was no stranger to me as I have spent ten years working on my feet, and am constantly bending down to fridges, chopping at benches and washing up over sinks so I feel my back aching more often than I probably should at my age.

I thought nothing of it, perhaps I’d overdone it? I didn’t know.

The next day I was at work as usual and again, bending down to a fridge I remember the pain that shot through the right side of my back. I made a joke to the guys at work that day, telling them it all goes downhill when you turn thirty.

Feeling a strange sense of gratitude that I’d survived the day, I was sitting on the sofa that evening watching something on TV with my boyfriend by my side when, at around 9pm, I suddenly got overcome with a dizziness that, paired with the pain, became too much that I took myself to bed.

The next morning as I swung my legs around to get out of bed, I realised the pain had now become unbearable and as I sat on the edge of my bed, tears involuntarily streamed out of my eyes. I had a special cake to bake for an 80th birthday that morning, but luckily it was from home and I didn’t have to go into work that day. I could barely speak through the agony and as I held the part of my back that was excruciating, it was then that Danny turned to me and worryingly said “what’s there? Is that your kidneys?” I didn’t know, but I did know this cake was important and it had to be delivered by 2pm. I’d promised.

He went off to work and I went down to the kitchen to set about baking. Once the cake was in the oven, I was rolling out the icing and I went dizzy again. Fondant, my nemesis at the best of times.

Now in agony despite the painkillers, I called 111, who said I needed to be assessed immediately and gave me the address of the local hospital. It was madness to me that I’d lived here almost three years and actually had no clue where the hospital even was. Fortunately, the cake delivery could be made without too much of a detour, so once I was happy with the finished product, I carefully put it into my car and dropped it off on the way to Caterham Dene – the local non-emergency hospital.

There, after a quick assessment and a urine test, they told me it was a kidney infection. I knew nothing about what that meant, apart from that I needed antibiotics to clear it up.

Back at home, I lay on the sofa for the rest of the day feeling sorry for myself. The next day, I turned up at work at usual time and the guys all said they were worried about the state I was in. Running your own business and being poorly doesn’t mix well, but luckily I had a new guy due to start that afternoon who was able to come in earlier so I set everything up, didn’t even wait for him to get there and returned to bed.. Talk about being thrown in at the deep end, but at this point I had to put trust in my existing staff to show him the ropes. I knew I had no choice.

I had a private dining to fulfil that evening that somebody had won in a charity auction I’d donated earlier in the year and I couldn’t possibly let them down, they had saved redeeming it for a 50th birthday and I would never pull out so last minute, so I plucked up all the courage I had in me to prep what was required for the evening before loading my car with the goods and turning up to their house, ragged with a combination of delirium, hot sweats, chills and agonising pain.

It went as smoothly as it could from my side despite the circumstances and then my bed felt as comforting as you could ever imagine that night.

Sunday morning, dosed up on painkillers and antibiotics, I turned up to unlock the doors at work unsure whether I’d be able to stand it. I opened, met the guys who again told me how awful I looked. It was then that I decided my health was more important than work at that point, so they’d have to run the day without the kitchen. I knew I needed more help, so I drove straight to A&E, where I sat for eight hours attached to a drip after a CT scan and more blood tests confirmed the severity of the infection.

“Do you have any questions?” The doctor asked before discharging me. “Yes, just one. I’m supposed to be going on holiday with my mum tomorrow, what do you suggest?”. I don’t think this was the kind of question she was anticipating and her very diplomatic response confirmed that I wouldn’t be laying on a beach in the Algarve but rather in the confines of my own home as I recovered.

I was also due to run a half-marathon the following weekend and see my favourite artist in Bournemouth the week after. All of which I had to miss.

With several more trips back to the hospital, a change in antibiotics and several different tests, I was increasingly fed up. It went on for a while, but I managed to get cover at work to allow myself a little time to rest and recoop, but frankly I was going nuts. Running my own café has been challenging enough in itself since opening in 2020, I did not want my ill health to jeopardise everything I’ve worked hard to build up so I was determined to get back in as soon as I could – and not overwork my staff.

I was back in for short days in the beginning, standing for only as long as I could and shivering with chills, staying by the oven to warm my weak body.

Once I started to feel more myself, I eventually managed to take myself on a yoga retreat for a week in June, knowing it would be very chilled out I took the risk of travelling and it undoubtedly did me good. Having not exercised for eight weeks, I felt anxious but the gentle movement paired with the Portuguese sunshine was the tonic my body needed.

The day I returned, I had a follow up CT scan to ensure my kidneys had recovered. When I got my results ten days later, I was broken to tears again that other issues had been flagged up. I was back and forth from the doctors and hospital for months for more tests, ultrasound scans and more.

I’d become far too accustomed to having my blood taken that the sight of a needle going into my arm no longer phased me.

Let’s fast forward all the boring stuff because frankly I could write for days about my health journey over the past eight months, but the main points have been touched on already. It’s now mid November and I have had two minor surgical procedures in the past three weeks.

After finally getting over the reaction I had to the anaesthetic used for an endoscopy a few weeks ago (to find out what’s happening in my stomach and why I have lost my appetite and consequently so much weight – most likely from all of the chemicals I’ve put in my body the past few months but that’s by the by…), I spent the latter half of last week recovering from a hysteroscopy where they removed some abnormal growths from my womb, which had me floored once again. I had the normal pain that I was told I’d have following the procedure, but also had a numbness and shooting pains down my right leg that I knew wasn’t normal.

Five days post-op, I knew I should be back on my feet rather than waddling around, finding a genuine struggle in the simple movement of walking. Waking up yesterday, as I held my back in agony, it was Danny again who told me that going to work was silly and he’d be back to get me in half an hour to take me to hospital. I stood there in tears, calling one of the guys that had covered me at short notice over the weekend (ironically the same guy that started the day I first got ill) and asked if he was able to do one more day for me. Through his sleepy voice, he said he’d be there and I went back to A&E, pulling up to East Surrey hospital for the fourteenth time this year. After never knowing its location before, I could now get there with my eyes closed.

Sure enough, the pain is explained again… Another fucking infection.

This time it’s slightly lower in the tract, so the pain is spread from my lower back, all around my abdomen on both sides and down my right leg. Back on antibiotics, back on my sofa and back in a sorry state. Most infuriating for me of all is that I am back on the very medication that made me lose my appetite and 5kg of weight in the first place. I am furious I have to take them again but I know I have no choice. I have worked so hard to get some weight back onto my bony body these past few months and here I am again.

I am fed up beyond explanation, I feel sorry for myself and I am incredibly upset, but the things I have learnt through this entire process is to slow down. Things can happen quickly, I quite literally fell sick overnight, like snapping my fingers one day and have been a mess ever since. Of course there have been days I have felt like my real self, but they have been sparse. As much as I feel like this entire year has been a blur and I have missed out on so many things, I am grateful. Grateful for my friends and family that have been there for me. I am grateful beyond words for my team at work for covering me and caring about me, and my business partner for holding the business together in my absence and allowing me space and time to heal (although I am not yet healed!). I am grateful at this point that it is only this, and nothing more serious.

Although I have in turn found out from several tests and scans that there are consequences to my hormone levels and body that have essentially taken the difficult decisions for my future out of my hands, I am desperately holding onto the light and gratitude as I slowly unravel at the seams once again.

Listen to your body, allow yourself to heal and slow down when it’s needed are the valuable lessons I’ve learned from the shitstorm I’ve been dealt this year.

So, just because I needed to get this all off my tight chest, I hope the morals will help somebody else to realise that we only ever get one body and we can’t control it’s functions no matter how healthily we eat, how much we look after ourselves and how much we work out.

I may have lost a lot of weight, I’ve lost all the shape & muscle I worked hard in the gym for, I’ve lost the will a few times, but I still have a lot to be thankful for. And I’m desperately longing for the day I feel like me again, because while I’ve lost a lot and missed out on a lot, I have not lost the fundamentals of who I am and I can’t bloody wait for a the FUN!

So here’s to recovery. Here’s to the future and here’s to slowly pulling myself back together, thread by thread. Oh, and I am slowly learning to say no. So here’s also to not taking on too much and putting myself first a little, maybe…sometimes.

And thank you to those that have been there for me through this rollercoaster I’d do anything not to be on, you’ve all made it a little more bearable… and I love you all.

Can I get off now, please?

LL, xo