My month of May passed in shock, sickness and the
slow-motion of watching the self from another place. After collapsing in the
forest when out with my dog – who incidentally probably saved my life by
licking my face until I recovered consciousness - I was diagnosed with heart
problems, taken into intensive care for an operation and eventually sent home
for the beginning of a long recuperation which will include weeks in a special
centre in Roscoff. I don't have the results of the latest tests yet, I don't have
the strength to do more than stroll a few hundred metres with a companion, I no
longer breathe easily and I can't face visitors. I don't work or drive, and
cling obstinately to this shrunken world. Alongside this torpor, there is a strong
element of unreality and separation, a sense of observing the struggles of
someone else. To be inactive, fearful and mentally unfit is so alien to who I have
always been. Now what, I wonder constantly. My personal landscape is destroyed.
Out of the many upheavals and changes that have ensued
from one sunny Saturday afternoon, the worst is knowing that I will never again
set off light-heartedly for a walk in the forest.
