I’ve always been a bit fascinated with change.

I think my biggest personal change was going from a quite committed spinster life in a teeny tiny house in Bumpkinsville, filled almost entirely with me, Norman cat, an awful lot of wool and a crochet habit (see the first seven years of this blog 😬 ) to being a married person in a house big enough for all of the above, Mr R, Percy dog and two stepsons.

It was our second wedding anniversary this week and I still can’t quite believe my now husband took a chance that a rather lonely caterpillar had the possibility of a life with wings…

We went on a picnic at Ditchling Beacon – the highest point near here – ‘the top of the world’.  We always go to the top of the world wherever we are, either to be happy or get perspective when things are tricky.  I didn’t know I’d need both within 24 hours.

What I try to always remember in my life and in work with my clients is that positive change can be just around the corner, even if you can’t even imagine what that could be right now.

But of course there is the other change too.  In the words of the Baz Luhrmann song using words written by Mary Schmich:

‘The real troubles in your life
Are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind
The kind that blindsides you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday’

In this instance Mary, you were impressively only about 2.5 hours out.

Because around 1.30pm this Tuesday, when Mum and I decided to stop tying up and pruning the roses in the garden and go inside for a coffee she told me she felt sick. As I tried to get her to the toilet, she collapsed.

I honestly thought Mum was dying.  Her eyes rolled back and stared through me, her breath rattled in her chest and her lips went a funny colour.  I supported her head and dialled 999 and for a few split seconds thought she had gone and that this was not the way it should be…

A few minutes later her eyes focussed, and her breathing changed, and I was still trying to convince the 999 operator that she really had not been stung by a bee; no this was not anaphylactic shock, and alternating between being grateful that help was coming and we were highest priority, and terrified that it was still going to take ‘around 30 minutes’.

It was a chaotic thirty minutes and in that time I discovered that Mum can be quite prolific when it comes to throwing up….and that Dad can’t handle someone being sick and starts retching himself, so while trying to clean I was grabbling the bowl (their casserole dish as it was the first thing I found🤦🏼‍♀️) from Dad and trying to empty it before mum threw up again.  (While also retching as I’m not great with sick either, but there was no way all three of us could throw up…! 🤢)

Sister 2 beat the ambulance, Sister 1 arrived soon after. They drove to the hospital, I went in the ambulance with Mum.  We left Dad at home as his breathing hadn’t been great before all the excitement and now it was at a stage where I wondered if we could pop him on some of the oxygen the paramedics had before we left…

Mum is ok.  It might have been a stroke, might have been a seizure.  The CT scan didn’t show anything but apparently if anything had happened on the same side of her head as the last stroke it wouldn’t show up.  So the next step is a trip to the GP this afternoon to see what they think about an MRI scan.

In our family style we made the most of the situation – even managing a picnic from Costa on the floor of Mums bay while she was having her scans, to the amusement of hospital staff.  We were really lucky that Mum was discharged after only four hours or so and had recovered so well that she requested a cheese sandwich for her tea before I drove home.

Change happens – good and less good.  Either way, it’s often unexpected.  And it might sneak up and blindside you at 4pm – or 1.30pm –  on some idle Tuesday.  So Say the things.  Do the things.  Make the smiles.  Now. 🙂