What a difference a year makes. Or does it? One year ago, it was March, which is Endometriosis Awareness Month. This year, it’s March again (surprise!) and it’s Endometriosis Awareness Month again. One year ago, I had just been given a diagnosis of endometriosis. (And, only one year before that, I had only just heard of endometriosis. Only one year! The average time to diagnosis is eight years; so, I’ve been incredibly lucky. Still, it was a painful, difficult year that I would gladly not repeat.)
I’ll never forget that experience: waking up in a narcotic haze, feeling slightly nauseous yet also incredibly thirsty, that brief moment of remembering the events that led me to be in a hospital bed, hearing the disembodied voice say, “We found endometriosis.” The relief! It was almost euphoric. Just finally knowing what was wrong with me was such a relief. And then, as if I was still waking up in stages, I realised: they found endometriosis. I have endometriosis. Endometriosis is incurable. I have endometriosis.
All the while you’re struggling towards that diagnosis, you feel like you’re scrambling up a jagged mountainside towards an invisible summit, with no equipment. Then, suddenly, you open your eyes in a hospital bed, and you’re at that summit! The surgery team picked you up and gave you a helicopter ride to the top. The surgeon is your sherpa; the gratitude you feel is overwhelming. The surgeon smiles kindly, answers your questions. It’s dark outside and she’s clutching her handbag and jacket – you realise she has stayed on late just to give you that opportunity. You thank her, she smiles and goes, your husband holds your hand. Then, as you lie back, the same old but somehow new and different you, you look upwards. And realise. This is not the summit. It’s just a pause for breath on the mountainside.
One year ago, the world was gripped by the unfolding misery of the Covid-19 pandemic and the fear of its many unknowns. We stocked up, we ran out, we stayed in, we locked down. We lived, we died, we suffered, we celebrated, we reflected, we learned. We were kind. What difference has this year made? From one angle, there’s no difference at all: we were locked down then, and we are locked down now. From another angle, there’s a world of difference today: we have a vaccine. (In fact, we have several.) We are weary, but we are hopeful. Are we still kind?
I come across kindness in so many unexpected places these days. When I took my mum to get her Covid-19 vaccine, a woman who had parked next to my car relinquished her parking space to let me help Mum out of her wheelchair. When I needed help studying, a colleague offered to post me her revision materials. When they arrived, the parcel included chocolate. The other day, another colleague asked me how I was, really meant it, and took the time to listen to me when I ventured more than the standard cheery response. We shared and listened. At one point in the conversation, my colleague referred to an elderly relative as being in the “foothills of dementia.” What a sad but perfect way of describing the rambling, misty beginnings of life’s last, arduous journey.
Perhaps we are now in the foothills of our global recovery from Covid-19. If I could, I would bottle that kindness that flowed so abundantly in the early days of the pandemic, and hand out those bottles to everyone I meet along the way. I get the feeling we’re going to need a lot more of it, in the times to come. Who knows how many cloud layers we still have to break through before the summit of the Covid-19 scramble is in view? There is still so much that is obscure; and yet, thankfully, there is optimism.
On the other hand, as far as endometriosis goes, we haven’t even left the car park yet.
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