perspective

Drew has been in hospital the last few days. Friday he started complaining about severe neck pain and a bad headache, which he handled all weekend, and a low-grade fever to boot. It was pretty worrying, especially as we were in Edinburgh for the bank holiday and I think he pushed himself a bit much. We finally decided to go to A&E Monday night, where he was admitted right away and began treatment & testing for possible meningitis. It was pretty scary. He went through blood tests, an X-ray and a CT scan, which kept coming back negative despite his continued symptoms. He finally had a "lumbar puncture" Tuesday afternoon, which took about 12 hours to test completely.

And it came back negative.

And he was sent home Wednesday morning.

And it's almost like nothing happened.

Except a lot happened-- if nothing else, it has given me yet more perspective. I feel like that's kind of a theme of this term for me. Everything comes back to perspective-- objectivity, knowing when enough is enough, awareness and balance.

I have been so relatively worked up all term about balancing everything-- and achieving the same (or similar) degree of success I had last term. I know I set the bar high for myself but I always want to do as well as I can, and with good scores/feedback, I know what I'm capable of. It has felt hard to achieve this term.

Yet-- something like this helps me realize that I can only do as much as I can do, and sometimes real life is more important. My laryngitis was a similar example. I can study and practice and focus as much as I want, but at the end of the day, if I am ill or if my partner is in the hospital, priorities immediately reorganize. And hopefully, if I've done the work as it comes, when I get back to it, I won't be behind.

I know I can be proud of the work I've done this term and this year. Marks are just a momentary indication of one specific moment in time and, ultimately, don't matter nearly as much as my person.

Certainly takes the pressure off in a nice way heading into the rest of the term!!