Tough Weeks

Last week was a really tough week for me - one of the toughest I've have since I moved to London. Very little went according to plan. A huge part of what was me working to finish my writing for a deadline. Writing is such a big struggle for me. More than anything, the thing that really throws me off with writing is that you can't plan when the ideas are going to start flowing. Even if I schedule 4 hours at my desk, there is no guarantee that my thoughts will come together in the way I want them to within those 4 hours ... and more often than not, after 4 hours at my desk, I'm just getting warmed up.

Since I had a deadline to meet, I had to make my writing a priority this week -- this meant everything else took a back seat.

That alone was annoying.

Add to that the fact that I wasn't feeling well at all - terrible symptoms as a result of iron-deficiency anemia which is all linked to my health history. It has been a terrible week -- pain, dizziness, and nausea topped the list of my symptoms ... and believe me, they were enough to make me just want to stay in bed and not come out at all.

I didn't hide away, but I definitely wasn't as active as I wanted to be -- when simply moving from a seated position to standing practically had me passing out, I knew that it would not be smart to push myself. Sometimes you just have to listen to your body! So, last week was very calm in terms of training -- I made it it a few Jiu-Jitsu sessions, but even then, I spent most of my time on the mats doing light drills and observing -- no sparring at all.

I started this week feeling better. I was taking an iron supplement and making sure to eat properly and drink lots of water ... I was back at the gym and everything was fine ... until Wednesday night when all of a sudden I had extreme chills - was shaking uncontrollably, was feeling nauseous and extremely ill ... it was terrible. It was shocking at how I went from feeling absolutely fine to incredibly ill.

I was in bed for the next 33 hours. I couldn't move. I had no energy whatsoever. I got up once and took a shower and made something to eat -- I thought that maybe if I tried to move about a bit and get some food in my system I would feel better, but no ... I had half a bowl of oatmeal which gave me just enough energy to crawl back to bed and that's where I stayed until Friday morning.

Today, physically I'm feeling a lot better -- it's just my head that's feeling a bit fuzzy, not really sure how to describe it. I'm going to try and make it as much of a normal day as possible and hope that whatever it was that affected me (I suspect it was a side effect of the iron supplements which I don't normally take because I've had bad side effects from them before) is no longer an issue.

So, lots of obstacles lately, but I know I've just got to keep pushing along and do the best I can.