Ten kicks Mateus, I grimace and start kicking, one, two, three….my body is drenched with sweat, in pain and my lungs are breathing heavily by the time I reach ten. I have to go and sit down for a moment and the trainer is laughing and then more seriously asks me if I want to watch some Kun Khmer fights on Saturday night. I smile and quickly agree.
Dr Dre is blasting out of the speakers and I have finished my fourth Kun Khmer one on one class. Despite a background in Western boxing and Muy Thai I have found the classes brutal, partly because I am still building strength since medical issues last year. I pay and leave. The sun is bright as I leave the gym and I buy a mango shake and sit by the river.
I am lucky that I was able to come back. In November I woke up in intensive care in a hospital bed with five drips in my arm, no idea of what was happening and my sister for some reason sleeping in the chair next to my hospital bed. I had scars on my chin, my head and my left shoulder and elbow were in a lot of pain, while I had a chipped tooth on my right side. I had to urinate in a bottle so nurses could see how much sodium was in my urine, and was taking 12 tablets of medication a day. Every four hours nurses would read my vital signs.
Conversations were going on around me, about me, but I was in a world of my own. Faces I recognised came in and spoke to me but I cant remember the conversations. I wasn’t allowed to walk on my own, wasn’t allowed to leave the hospital, wasn’t allowed to shower, nor smoke nor have a coffee.
After about three days I was told that I had severe hyponatremia that had lead to multiple seizures in my apartment on my own. If my colleagues hadn’t found me when they did I would have died. I had lost litres of blood, at the time of hospital admittance, hadn’t eaten for two days and had vomited, and had concussion from banging my head during the seizures.
My mother arrived at the hospital three or four days after I was admitted. Upon seeing her I was angry, I did not want her to have to go through this again. The pain of losing my beautiful sister tragically in November 2007 to a seizure had never left my mother, my sister or me, and now, I was somehow putting them through it all again. I nearly broke down but couldn’t.
People in hospital including my family kept telling me how serious it was but I was in denial. Did not think I should be there. Wanted to get up and leave and go back to my life. I was told that I had to go back to Australia to get specialist tests, MRI scans, see a neurologist and get my bloods stabilised. Given I was still carrying my own trauma to do with losing my sister I was also instructed to see a psychiatrist as I was facing up to the fact that I had, in a couple of days, lost my health, both physical and mental, and my mother and sister had just had tragedy strike twice.
I left hospital after eight days. I nearly hugged the dr and the nurses. They had saved my life. As had two of my colleagues. But the battle for health was just beginning. Two hours after leaving hospital and having the last drips removed from my arm I got on a treadmill and slowly jogged for ten minutes before nearly collapsing. My brain wasn’t functioning, it was foggy and I was in a world of my own. I had lost my home, and potentially my job and was facing up to needing my sister and mother for support for an extended period of time.
I was down to 72 kgs when I was in hospital. About 7 kgs less than what I normally weigh.
The seizures had ravaged my body and although reasonably fit before them I had gone back to square one in terms of fitness. I tried to do a pull up on the second day out and couldn’t. So compensated by doing some light lat pull downs. I ate three to four meals in one sitting trying to put my weight back on. I threw so much salt on my food it made the food look like a side with salt.
Being in hospital had forced me to not smoke. I was only ever going to stop smoking or vaping by being in prison or hospital and thankfully it was the latter. Daily I fought against the craving. I started swimming again which slowly cleared my mind. My mother and sister were at my side throughout, patient, helping me when I forgot things, forgiving me for not being myself. Initially in hospital my sister had been so concerned I was brain damaged she asked the dr if I would ever recover my full faculties again. He told her it was the rapid intake of sodium drips and hopefully things will clear once my body was stabilised.
Over the next two months back in Sydney I hid away. I woke early and worked out on my own in Bondi Boxing Gym, my old trainer occasionally giving me words of encouragement and support, knowing I was fighting a very personal battle. Him being a fighter himself, he could see himself in me as I struggled through workouts that three years ago would have been easy for me. He saw the determination on my face.
I took the medication and meditated after working out. I went to MRI scans, neurologist appointments, vascular heart scans, EEG’s, endicronologist appointments. I quietly did first two pull ups in a row, then five, then smiled to myself each time I could do one more. I ate clean and more and put on weight in muscle. Behind my back at all times were my sister, my brother in law and my mother. When I lashed out about having lost everything they forgave me. When I lashed out because I couldn’t remember things they forgave me. They were my rocks.
Reading the Quran, Buddhist texts, and Eckhart Tolle in between psychiatrist appointments and blood tests I educated my mind. I didn’t drink for four months and stopped smoking and vaping. I kept low key and saw only those who had my back, who I trusted.
A quarter of people who get hospitalised with levels of hyponatremia similar to mine die. That statistic motivated me. I survived. I was lucky. As my mental disciple grew with meditation, fasting, watching my diet, my exercise and through self education, I learnt a different way of being. Being so close to death and not having fulfilled all my dreams, nearly dying without telling those who have always had my back how much they meant to me, nearly dying without living to my full potential would catalyze me in ways I never thought possible and drive me forward to be the best version of me.
After two and a half months of tests, appointments and self growth my GP finally said I was clear to work with no restrictions and good to go back. I nearly cried. When I had been in hospital I couldn’t talk properly, couldn’t walk properly and had lost everything. I quickly told my sister, mother and brother in law how much I owed them and made arrangements to come back.
Âu kŭn means thank you in Khmer. And I am back here in this wonderful land that saved my life. There are people here with much braver stories than mine. People who have survived genocide. And it is my duty to repay their kindness with everything I have.
תגובות