A Fragility I Rarely Admit

Lads, it’s been a week.

Lads, it’s been a week.

The kind of week where your body reminds you that you are not, in fact, in charge.

I had surgery a week ago. The anaesthetic did that strange thing it does to time. You fall asleep in one version of the world and wake up in another, where the days feel like a broken mirror, scattered and out of sequence. Things don’t quite line up the way they should.

I slept for three days. Proper sleep. But it didn’t feel like rest. It felt more like my body had disappeared somewhere private to repair itself.

Which, of course, it had.

And then came the strange aftermath.

Nerve damage.

My tongue completely numb. Pins and needles humming through it like a faulty electric wire. Brushing my teeth feels like dragging something sharp across an exposed nerve. Eating is awkward. Speaking feels unfamiliar.

As if a small but important piece of the map of my body has suddenly been erased.

At the same time my lungs decided to stage their own rebellion.

What I thought was an asthma flare turned out to be a chest infection quietly settling into my lungs, growing heavier and heavier. Antibiotics have finally begun their work and now my body is expelling everything with a kind of determined urgency. Mucus, fluid, coughs that seem to reach all the way down to the bottom of my ribs, echoing through corridors and probably keeping everyone else awake.

It is not elegant.

It is not graceful.

It is simply the body trying, in its messy and stubborn way, to stay alive.

And I feel fragile in a way I don’t often admit.

It feels like my time is being tested and I have so much more I want & need to do. Even if its just honouring my friends and fam, saying how much I love you all.

//////

Usually I’m fairly upbeat about all of this. The biopsies. The strange medical vocabulary that creeps quietly into your life once illness has touched it. Treatments that no longer work and your left with what can be done next. The quiet background knowledge that your body has already tried to betray you before.

It is what it is, after all.

All one step forward, as Fran says.

/

But every so often something cracks.

Resilience is a beautiful thing, but it is not infinite. Some days it simply grows tired of holding everything together.

And when that happens, fear slips in through the smallest opening.

Not dramatic fear.

Bad habits. It turns out that I am very clingy to this life.

Just the quiet kind that arrives at night.

The kind where you lie there with aching lungs, neck/throat pain and a chest tight with infection, and suddenly you can hear your own heartbeat very clearly. You remember that bodies are temporary structures.

That every breath is a small negotiation between life and whatever comes after.

Sometimes we need to stand right on the edge of that knowledge and feel it.

Not to be morbid.

But to be honest.

Because illness has a way of pulling the curtain back on something most of us politely avoid.

That we are fragile.

That we are mortal.

That the miracle is not that life is permanent.

The miracle is that it keeps happening at all.

And sometimes that awareness can feel lonely.

Illness can isolate you inside your own body. Even when people love you deeply, they cannot quite step into the strange geography of pain, uncertainty, and exhaustion that you are navigating.

But just as loneliness begins to settle in, the universe has a habit of interrupting the story.

/

Texts from Fran. The kind of wise, grounding reminders that come from someone who knows you well enough to challenge the parts of you that refuse help.

Offers from friends to pick me up from hospital. To drive me somewhere. To sit with me. Blown away.

Over 50 messages waiting in my Instagram inbox, all because of a slightly ridiculous Insta story about how much pain I was in. Love arriving through small glowing rectangles. People reaching across distance simply to say: I’m here.

I haven’t even had the strength to reply to most of them yet.

/

And then an email from Paulette.

I was lying in bed, feeling sick and vulnerable, when it arrived like a small ray of sunlight.

A simple invitation.

“Come to Gomde… You need to rest.”

///

When I arrived, Paulette gave me what can only be described as the world’s most serious hug.

Not a quick hug. It was long. It was less of a hug and more a being truly held.

The kind where someone holds you long enough that something inside your nervous system begins to settle. The kind where you can feel another person offering steadiness.

It felt like a transfer of energy. As well as love.

She looked at me in that very Paulette way and said, with complete certainty,

“Your body has been through a lot. You need rest.”

And for a moment I forgot how tired I was, because someone else was holding the weight of the world for me.

So generously, I felt so seen. Deep in my core. Like she knew exactly what I was feeling - both physically and mentally. And it was a relief, in a way.

///////

And here is the thing I am still learning.

I am very good at giving care. So many of us are.

I am less good at receiving it. So many of us also aren’t the best at receiving care too.

//

Somewhere along the way many of us learn the wrong lesson about strength. We think resilience means pushing through. Carrying on. Not needing too much from anyone. Holding everything together and pretending everything is cool, when in fact - you don’t feel ok.

//

When I was diagnosed with NHL over a decade ago, at summer camp of all places, life tried to teach me this same lesson.

That being alive is not a solo project. That care is not weakness.

That we are profoundly interdependent beings.

That our lives are constantly being held up by people who love us in ways we barely notice until we really need them.

Buddhism speaks often about compassion for all beings.

But sometimes we forget that we are also one of those beings.

///

This week I have been reminded that self-compassion is not indulgence.

It is the quiet act of letting go of the identities and expectations that prevent us from receiving love.

Letting go of the stubborn belief that we must always be strong.

So here I am.

I started writing this post while lying in a warm room at Gomde. Feeling the weight of my own uncertainity but feeling endlessly, grateful for an understanding that was like understanding everything i have been trying to hold.

An ensuite room Paulette kindly prepared for me, like a small sanctuary placed gently inside a difficult week. Not just a room, but another extension to that incredible serious hug that deeply moved me earlier on in the day.

/

Outside, prayer flags shift softly in the wind. Somewhere across the land a bell rings. Incense drifts through the meditation hall. Someone downstairs is boiling water for tea.

Life continuing.

My body doing the slow, unglamorous work of healing.

Coughing.
Resting.
Letting the medicine do its job.

And in the quiet of this place I find myself thinking about something illness has taught me again and again.

/

Mortality is not only a reminder that life ends.

It is also a reminder that life is constantly being given back to us.

In breaths.
In friendships.
In hugs that last longer than expected.
In rooms offered without hesitation.

/

In people who look at you and say, with complete seriousness,

“You need care.”

And maybe that is the real miracle.

Not that we survive anything. But that we rarely have to survive it alone.

That we spend so much of our lives trying to be strong enough to stand alone, when the real work of being human is learning how to be held - together.

Tonight my throat, lungs & body still ache. My tongue still hums with pins and needles. My body is tired in ways I cannot quite explain.

the prayer flags keep moving in the dark, carrying small prayers into the wind.

And lying here, wrapped in the love, lightness & quiet kindness of friends, I realise something that this journey has been trying to teach me for years.

Not that life is fragile.

But that love is far stronger than the body that carries it.

Breath by breath.

Kindness to our souls. Thank you Paulette, Carole, Fran, Helen, and everyone else who has been extra incredible to me this past week. I owe you all so much in a debt of gratitude and love.