So, how best to explain this tale?
Do I start with the cold hard facts? Or do I start from a place of comfort and security, where life was just getting in order for me.
I feel that I should start from a deeper and darker place in time. To explain how I came to be sitting here writing about the events that have unfolded:
I was once a young man full of woe and depression, I left home at the age of 17 and got taken in by my uncle. He looked after me for 5 years until I had become a man, at the age of about 22 ish..? I was ultimately less bitter and more aware of the facts of the world. This man was also my greatest teacher. He taught me how I didn’t want to be, as he was also full of anger and resentment. So in his fear and anger, he taught me how to come out of the depths of my rage and find the love in my heart. I recognised that fear was a driving force for all the anger and hate in this world and that I didn’t want to become that!
So I left the nest once again to find myself. I tried enrolling in college but found that, without a job to support myself I could not get anywhere with that, especially not photography. Which is an expensive hobby, to say the least.
Fortunately I found a course that would fund me and provide me with student housing and pay my rent. So I enrolled in a photography course, which I lasted a year at, then, after meeting the girl of my dreams and falling in love. I decided to leave the course and find a job. Picking vegetables for an organic food company.
The hours were unsteady and it was gruelling work. So I left that job and searched for another.
I am sorry for the story so far, being long winded, but I feel it is necessary to show you where I have come from to where I am now.
I finally found a decent job working in a garden centre, the hours were long, the pay was better and the employees were a joy to be around. I found a new lease on life where I enjoyed the company of plants and the interaction with gardeners and plant enthusiasts alike.
I started to work my way up the ladder, so to say, higher wages, more responsibility and more happiness in what I was able to do. Up until now I had not been as responsible as I could have been.
About 6 months into the job. I started to have headaches, which soon turned into migraines and nervous tension and which put me out of action at work. I decided I needed to go to the doctors to find the root cause of this pain and discomfort.
The original analysis was that I was suffering from a migrainous aura, (which I had never heard of but nonetheless was a real thing).
So I went back to work and this is when the first seizure happened.
I had just finished work and decided to walk to meet my partner along the road to save on fuel. I had to run a ways because it was a narrow section of the road and it was dangerous for me to walk. Anyway, As I got to the far end of the road, I decided I needed to take a drink of water, whilst doing so, my face started to feel numb, my jaw sagged and my tongue felt like it had bits all over it. I thought to myself, “Shit, I’m having a bloody stroke!”
I took deep breaths and walked a ways and it subsided after about two minutes, but I was left weak and scared.
A similar occurrence happened less than a week later as I finished working. I went to the staff room to hydrate and chill out a bit. I took a drink and something kind of clicked in my neck, then the facial numbness and discomfort happened again. So I booked a doctor’s appointment the next day and said I was deeply concerned and was booked for a CT scan by my GP, at Derriford hospital the next day.
After a lot of waiting around the day after. I had my CT scan and I got called in by the Neurological consultant. He suggested that the scan showed no signs of anything untoward and that it was just as the GP said, “A Migrainous Aura…”
To me this was a huge relief. A complete relief. A godsend!
Alas, and unfortunately, I received a call two days later from the Neurological consultant to ask me to come back in as he had something to explain to me!
You can imagine all the sorts of things my mind conjured up for me, is it a tumour, is it brain damage? WHAT, WHAT, WHAT is it!
As it turns out and to put it bluntly, (it was very bluntly put might I add…), “Pablo, you have an abnormality in your brain, most definitely a tumour but as to the severity of the tumour, I sadly, cannot say.”
My partner and I broke down in tears. The consultant politely left the room so we could digest this awful news, my mind and heart was reeling. “Why me, me of all people!” Why, WHY!
So, to sum the first part of my story up. From a migrainous aura to a brain tumour in a matter of days.
Shock, shock, horror, horror.
This is the truth, a life changing truth, for around 1 out of 2 men and 1 out of 3 women on this beautiful planet. Cancer.
Where the cells in the body become cancerous, toxic and deadly. But then again, it is also all about how you perceive it.
With Love, Pablo Isaiah Kelly.
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