Five years ago

Five years ago. Sometimes it seems longer. 

I was busy being me. Minding my own business. Glass half full or more often full to overflowing.

I was dressed for work. More than work, much more my whole life than a job. One of the churches under my care was expecting me to bounce in to lead an all-singing, all-dancing all-age worship service. The sort of lively, noisy service full of laughter, joy and thankfulness that many folk think doesn't happen. The sort where newcomers grin and say as they shake my hand: "I never knew church was like this!"

Five years ago. I put my briefcase down by the bed. I'd had flu for days but was pushing through as usual to do what I was called to do. I'd had the annual flu shot, as advised to diabetics in the "at risk" category, a week before. It often made me feel shockingly ill for weeks after, but I laughed and did as wisdom dictated, had the shot anyway.

Five years ago. I tested to make sure my blood sugar wasn't low and going "hypo". It felt a bit like it. Only at the same time so much worse. My body was shutting down. The world was slipping into feverish, rubbery slo-mo. The dog caught my eye, my male tricolour sheltie, with me since the beginning of my ministry nine years earlier. My knowing little dog, who would pant and laugh until you joined him, gently mocking him, then pop his black lips back together and look at you as if you were insane. My wise, brave little dog who knew me better than I knew myself, and still adored me.

"It's alright. I'm just going to lie down for five minutes. Just for a second." I said to him. Mostly to myself,  though, because I know he knew even then he would not see me well again in his lifetime.

The next thing I knew, the steward from the church was knocking at the unlocked front door of the Manse and calling my name up the stairs. I had blacked out and never turned up to take the service.

Five years ago. That wasn't the beginning of M.E. for me. That came most probably back in 1991 when I suffered with giardia (internal worms that love your liver!) and amoebic dysentery while living and working in Bolivia. That's when the boom and bust patterns of M.E. seem to have first taken hold, triggered by the virus and infection and trauma in the immune system. I had been in South America, having the time of my life giving all I'd got and being blessed with much more in return. The first English Methodist Mission Partner to live and work in Sucre, Bolivia. I would never be the same; but it was years before I could begin to trace what had changed in my body. My spirit had so been soaring!

Five years ago. After three severe bouts of shingles in my head, followed by months of pain and illness leaving me intermittently all but disabled, the biggest collapse. The one that changed my life and had me forced to retire from the ministry I love, temporarily at least, struggling some days to function at all.

Five years ago.

Life begins at forty. At forty three I was in my prime.