Filed under: Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Australia, Colenso, Colleagues, Health, Meetings
So I was supposed to be back from my trip to Melbourne.
But I’m not.
Because this trip can best be described as a shit show.
It started on the flight over where we had some bad turbulence and then the people next to – and behind – me started vomiting like human fountains.
Then when I went through immigration, I was stopped as they said I didn’t have a visa to enter the country. This, despite the fact I own property here, pay tax here, my wife is Australian, my son has an Australian passport and – oh yes – I have been a permanent resident of Australia for 20+ years.
After they realised they’d made a mistake on their computer, I was allowed to go and met up with my colleagues who were wondering where the fuck I was.
Surely that was the end of the drama?
Well yes … until at 2am, where I woke up in utter agony.
The only way I can describe the level of pain I was in is that I chose to go to hospital.
No making excuses. Or popping some paracetamol and going back to sleep.
I got in a taxi and went straight to A&E.
And thank god I did as I had picked up a bad infection in my kidney’s and appendix.
Apparently it had been developing for weeks – and when I look back on some days over the previous fortnight, I realised I’d done the classic excuses and popping paracetamol – but the time had come for it to make its presence known, and boy did it do that.
To be honest, as bad as I felt, I felt even worse that I had just burdened my colleagues with my work. They already had enough to do and here I was, at the last minute, giving them more.
And they not only took it on and executed it better than I … they stayed concerned about me.
That’s proper colleagues.
Mates even.
And I’m so grateful to them, the clients – who also were worried about me – and the amazing Doctors and Nurses at St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne who were compassionate, concerned and efficient.
I’m on the mend and allowed to fly home today, but till then, I’m going to chill and remind myself that your body wants you to be well, so when it hurts or gurgles or aches … it’s trying to make you deal with it before it ends up seeing you in a foreign hospital desperate for help.
So while this trip was a shitshow, it was a shitshow that shined a light on all the good.
Fight for your health service. It’s a gift.
See you Monday.