Earlier this year I had this saying hit home in a way I wasn't expecting. Fair warning on this post. It is pretty loooong. Read only if interested. Obviously! Or jump to the Lessons Learned section at the very end for the take home message. This is only for those who wondered where the hell I got to in February and March of this year. And also possibly why haven't bothered to market the fitness gig for so long.

It's a Friday night and I'm having a late night 'healthy' snack of chia seeds, dried fruit and nuts in greek yogurt. I was pretty generous with the size of chia serving, but figured that 'hey although high in energy, they have a great healthy fats profile'. Also I never had had problems from them before.

I was in the midst of a Whole 30 ish eating approach, not the cult version but one that I had taken on before. Anyway, little did I know that it wouldn't be long after ingesting said snack, that a chain of events was set in motion and would take on a momentum that became hard to stop. I would be going on a wild ride, if not to the edge of my very existence, but very much in a direction where I could at least see it!

The photo accompanying this post captures the joy of this experience somewhat. As a typical bloke I responded a little slowly to what was unfolding in my stomach that night and the coming days. About 2-3 hours after eating this inspired 'creation' I awoke in severe abdominal pain. I thought that I probably had food poisoning and that it would pass for sure. It didn't. Of course the more intelligent of the species suggested politely that I should go to emergency, probably because of the involuntary groans I was making most of the night. When the suggestion of something so extreme like going to hospital fell on deaf ears, the second idea was to 'go see the doctor'. Stupidly I thought I should just 'see how it goes'.....4 days later after different lengths of time of varying levels of excruciating stomach pain, I decided I should probably 'see someone'.

I went to a local medical centre/ This experience did not raise my opinion from an already pretty low base, of what the average doctor was going to do. Anyway after a less than comprehensive examination, I was given a referral for an ultrasound. Fortunately my own (belated) common sense kicked in after hearing I would need to wait for a week for the test to be done. It was at this point, well after one last night of no sleep and a building concern around what was happening or more poignantly, not happening in my stomach, my wife took me to emergency.

As the pain would sort of come and go in it's intensity, I still was not convinced that I would be there long. I was anticipating some kind of magic 'something' would sort it all out when I got myself inside the mystical emergency admission doors. I steeled myself for a lengthy wait and finally comprehend the true seriousness of the situation when they kind of rushed me in ahead of a lot of people. The people waiting included a pretty unwell looking little old lady in a wheelchair which gave me more evidence that I was an idiot for not doing something sooner.

After having a young intern, looking a little like Doogy Houser (but not showing the same genius like traits) do some poking, prodding and questioning resulting in a 'I have no idea look', I awaited someone with more experience. This is where I commend the age and experience thing as the greyed hair bloke from the same ball park vintage as myself came out with the confident statement that, 'yeah I'm almost certain its a bowel obstruction but let's see exactly with a CT scan'. And with that I was wisked off in my own wheel chair. And this is where the true journey began. One that involved more pain, discomfort, medications, surgery, concern (yes including a little bit of dread) determination and definitely gratitude than I was expecting.

For those of you wondering at this stage how the heck something like this happens, recall my earlier mention of chia seeds and read on for a warning of sorts.

If you remember I thought initially that I had food poisioning from what I thought must have been 'off' chia seeds. My belief now after talking with the surgeon and of course eventually doing my own research, it was probably not so much the chia seeds per se, but the sheer quantity and then how I ate them.

Before I get you too scared about chia seeds, understand that I see eating those chia seeds as only the trigger. I believe I was pretty dehydrated at the time and after a day of really high fibre eating, the chia were the last nail in a blockage shaped coffin! The chia likely swelled inside my body causing a mass to form which got stuck. It may not have been significant on it's own or if I had less fibre that day or was better hydrated but I had another kind of ticking time bomb inside me. That may be a little melodramatic, but the surgeon told me about the scar tissue around my small bowel from a child hood appendix operation caused the collapse (possibly triggered by the chia seeds) and was essentially strangling that really critical part of the body. This development also led to the collapse of the large bowel further down the system for some other reason I can't remember. But with 2 areas absolutely not letting anything through, the stage was set for a big big problem.

It took a number of days in hospital before surgery became the only option as they don't want to open you up for no good reason. There were many things tried and lost of monitoring to see if the blockage could be coaxed free. It was only after multiple scans painting a progressively worse picture and a body that was becoming more and more stuck, that the green light was pressed for surgery.

The run up to being wheeled out to surgery, after the decision was made, was where the real fun began. I was informed that I needed a 'naso-gastric' tube. Even though I hadn't hear of that before, I realised it was something likely to be 'not great', when I saw the look of dread on the nurse's face when she told me. Put it this way, it lived up to the hype. Imagine having something forced up your nose and around (hopefully - it can get caught...which it did) and then down your throat, all the way to your stomach and again hopefully, not in to your lungs. If it goes in to your lungs, again even bigger problems. They got it right thankfully. I don't want to gloss over this as it is indelably carved in to my memory bank. Imagine taking a liquid medication multiple times per day, for a few days whose purpose was to act like a kind of 'Drano' to possibly clear the blockage. Now the blockage didn't clear which means it was building up each time from where the blockage was in the small bowel, ie. a stomach full of that and whatever else that got backed up from the start of the blockage. Now think about sticking your fingers down your throat and what usually happens. This is why they say 99% of people will throw up when the tube is put in. Suffice is to say I didn't get in to the lucky 1%. Whilst I guess it was relatively quick in the overall scheme of things, time did very much slow down. It didn't help that the first attempt to get it through didn't work due to a too narrow space on the side of the nose chosen. This was probably due to a previously broken nose. Anyway success of sorts with the second attempt. I can only compliment the nurses involved. It was horrible horrible job. Suffice is to say, insertion of naso-gastric tube and the subequent time it stayed in place (over a week) equals, 'no fun' :) At some point too, it kind of got moved and turned what was simply a super uncomfortable ongoing feeling to one of choking whenever trying to talk.The day it came out improved my quality of life by about 1000%.

Surgery apparently 'went well', despite some errant cuts to the bowel whilst cutting through the scar tissue. Luckily it was spotted (it isn't always which is 'bad') and the surgeon did some on the spot repairs. I consider myself very fortunate that key hole surgery was the extent of the incisions. The surgeon had told me that it was quite possible I would need 'unzippering' to get better access if the key hole methodolgy didn't provide the room they needed to do what was needed to be done. He told me after, that by the time we got in to surgery the obstruction was very advanced and the implication being, it was just in the nick of time kind of thing. When I stupidly looked up some research on these operations and read that 30% of the particular cohort I was reading about, not only died but died with in 30 days! I was beginning to regret my penchant for 'research' especially as it was the last thing I read before being wheeled off to surgery.

Happily, I did wake up post surgery :) To be honest despite the emergency and life threatening nature of the condition, I was expecting a quick recovery. After all, my resting pulse and blood pressure had returned to normal in impressive fashion post previous, albeit less intense medical procedures, but yeah this was different. As it turned out, the reality of the seriousness of what I was dealing with was brought home when I saw there was no-one left in the recovery room I was in and then seeing alarmingly high numbers for both my blood pressure and resting pulse which the nurses seemed to be reporting on in very short intervals.

Eventually the numbers came down enough to be taken back to my room where my wife was waiting anxiously.

At this point, it is definitely too late to say, long story short :) But in moving this story along, my experience from this point on was punctuated with bouts of concern and occasional dread, which kind of surprised me. It may have been the stuff that I had read pre surgery and then more the extra stuff I found after, but it was the seeming refusal of my body to kick back in to gear that occupied my thoughts. What was it going to take to get it play ball?

I will say the nursing staff at Prince Charles Hospital were truly fantastic, for 99% of the time. There was one nurse however who didn't seem to pick up how beat up I actually was in the 24 hours post surgery. She was seemingly surprised that wrenching my arm above my head whilst 'helping' me get sorted for a shower might cause a little pain :) I was super scared that the naso gastric tube would be dislodged too thus requiring another stint of medieval like shoving of hoses in to small and very unwilling orifices. Fortunately that didn't happen.;

What followed was many days of monitoring and regular drug taking whilst waiting for the body to get through what is a common side effect of bowel surgery. Ironically the reaction is a phenomenon very similar to the problem they put me in surgery to fix. That reaction is known as an Ileus. It is where the digestive system basically goes to sleep. This is also where the naso gastric tube plays a vital role in emptying the stomach of fluid build up. It was around this time that I was becoming incredibly hungry too, which was no surprise given that the only thing that had been going in to my system (not my stomach) were electrolytes. Immediately post surgery I was allowed to have a fluid diet, which as you can imagine was really cutting it in terms of satiating my hunger. That being what it was, I was still pretty happy to be sipping on even a tasteless bone broth by this time because it had been 14 days since I had had any type of food. I couldn't eat until the body started to respond properly. I was a whisker away from needing a PIC line. This was another procedure with another set up possible adverse effects and a need to keel the naso gastric tube in place. Not what I wanted. The no food thing, in retrospect was a big part of the reason it took me so long to recover. If you are able to plan for surgery you can ensure that your nutritional status is solid, meaning that you have nutrients and particularly protein available to help repair and recover. Since I had no resources availabe to achieve this, my body simply went to work breaking down muscle to assist in this process. This is why I became so emaciated. By the time my body started to show signs of proper function I was so hungry that I kind of over did it with predictable consequences. The first taste of bacon was THE best thing I had ever remember eating.

In the end they signed off on me going home. Whilst I was really keen to go, I was also very concerned that I wasn't quite ready. The care in hospital was great as I said, but I didn not want to arrive home still needing that kind of nursing help. My wife was pretty keen too for that as you can imagine.

The worry continued when I got home because after 17 days in hospital, which I never expected, that I should really be 'good to go' again. That was far from how I felt. I remember that one nurse had kind of warned me that I would 'need months to recover fully' from the ordeal. I recall thinking, well that won't be me!

When I arrived home, greeted by my crazy happy dog I was feeling super weak. As great as it was to be home, I began to see I was not absorbing nutrients well at all. I was losing 2-3kg in body weight every second day, which was obviously becoming a concern. In hospital I got quite heavy post surgery, not from food because I couldn't eat much but from the fluids they were putting in to me via drip. When they decided they should weigh me and track this I was up around 78kg which was 4 up from normal. This made them realise they were overdoing the fluids especially when you factor in the loss I would have experience from having no food for what was heading towards 14 days. I was initially very happy to see the weight start to come down as they reduced the fluid intake, but then as I got closer to coming home my digestive system was still not function the way it is supposed to and the weight loss continued. I started to obsessively track weight at home as my weight was now in the 60's. It wasn't hard at first to know that I was simply losing a lot of water from night sweats. I having to change my clothes up to 3 times each night. But it was a chronic diarrhea which led me to wonder if there was some insidious infection they might have missed and would eventually force me to go back to hospital. When I absorbed the fact that I was now 11 kg lighter than my normal weight and that pretty soon I would be lighter than my very lean wife, I was beginning to wonder what might stop it.

It was at this time I did more research :) I kind of wish I hadn't. Again. I was spending inordinate amounts of time just lying around because my energy was so, so I had some time on my hands. I had no desire to just watch endless Netflix crap and I had my cherished dog to keep me company. She seemed very content just lying at my feet on the bed. Just as an aside. I'm not sure if you have seen Ricky Gervais talk about how he feels about dogs? I am right there with him on this subject.

There were two things on my mind from the research I did, as I contemplated just how skinny I might get. C. Difficile, and an out of control CRP. I had an awareness of both from the talk in hospital and the paperwork I brought home. The first one according to the Mayo Clinic: "Clostridioides difficile (klos-TRID-e-oi-deez dif-uh-SEEL) is a bacterium that causes an infection of the colon, the longest part of the large intestine. Symptoms can range from diarrhea to life-threatening damage to the colon. The bacterium is often called C. difficile or C. diff." And the second from the Cleveland Clinic Online: "What is an alarming level of CRP? A CRP test result of more than 50 mg/dL is generally considered severe elevation. Results over 50 mg/L are associated with acute bacterial infections about 90% of the time.

I discovere only after I got home that mine had been pushing 300 in hospital. No wonder they kept testing me so much. It really needed to go down. He suggested testing for these things again, as they may have been inaccurate readings in hospital before being released. I decided I would reach out to a mate of mine who is a naturopath. He put me a stack of stuff designed to help with night sweats and chronic digestive problems. I started improving almost overnight and my dramatic weight loss stopped. The blood test results came back negative for C. Difficile and my CRP had dropped to 6. You want less than 5, but I was more than happy with 6 given the high point it had been. It was and still is now, my mission to put on weight and more than I have ever had in my whole life. I decided that a buffer zone would be prudent should I ever be faced with a rapid weight loss situation again. If one has extra weight it would seem there is a longer runway before a possible exit stage left. Of course the goal is muscle not fat.

If you made it all the way through this, well bloody done. It was a long one indeed. But we are not quite done yet though :)

Regardless of who reads this, if anybody, it has been kind of carthartic to write, as I just needed to get it out of my head, so I can move on I guess. If you did read this (please let me know if you did) perhaps it goes some way towards explaining my lack of communication since earlier this year. But to be super honest, the lack of communication started way before this back in late 2019, when my motivation for what I was doing started to come in to serious question. I had lost both my parents in fairly quick succession from Christmas day 2019, when Dad passed away and then Mum on International Womens Day in March of 2020. They both liked the big occasion :). I didn't realise it at the time but losing your parents was going to be majorly life changing for me, at least mentally.

If you are student of history you will know that Covid had a kickoff date of around this time too in late March 2020. This was yet another huge event that predictably had life changing implications, not just for me, but many many people. The lingering effects of how the whole thing was handled (and I'm going to call it for it was, a debacle on so many levels) changed everything and is significant even to this day. It affected not only how I was going to run my business at the time, but also how I view those who made those decisions for everyone. Whilst it is true there were some motivations to do the best by people, it has become increasingly clear that there were other less admirable motivations at play. And still now, the true nature of many things about it and other significant issues of today are becoming harder to decipher. I realise that sounds rather heavy or serious but I don't think I am the only one who feels this. It affects my view of what I see as important and essentially how I will live moving forward including my work.

Another very personal realisation that came to fruition in this time frame was a grudging and heart breaking acceptance that my wife and I were not going to be parents of our own biological child. 4 miss carriages and many years of doing just about everything possible to make it happen led us to that place of somewhere different than we ever thought we would be.

So with all the aformentioned in mind, you may see that the running of another (new) personal training studio was perhaps not the highest or even a priority anymore.

This kind of brings me to the point of this article and the bottom line. At the very end you will see my Lessons Learned section. Maybe this is what you jumped too. No worries. Hopefully it helps somebody make better decisions than I did. A quicker response to this could have made a pretty big difference. If only I listened to my wife :) Many a man has probably uttered those words!

So now, in my drive to be even more healthy, fit, flexible and stronger, my focus is what it can do for me in getting the most out of my life. I am definitely enjoying more time for myself but I am still coaching and training a few people I don't mind hanging out with. I know now it is something that I will probably always do in one form or another. The main difference is that I only want to work with those who really want the help and value the time as much as I do.

I have a renewed interest in highlighting what's needed to be done to achieve a healthy, fit, flexible and strong body. It generally always leads to a stronger and happier mind too, so the importance of it can't be underestimated. If that is something you want and haven't never quite been able to get, then by all means send me a message. If it's a good fit for both of us, I look forward to spending some time and seeing you achieve the most important habit there is to give you the best chance for the highest quality of life.

Lastly here are the lessons learned:

• Recognise the difference (quickly) between food poisoning and complete bowel obstruction. Go to hospital immediately if the latter :) That is, don't wait 4 days!
• Try to maintain the highest level of fitness, strength and health as you can to provide a 'buffer'. This will help just in case you are forced to be hospital and bed bound and not able to take in any food or nutrients besides electrolytes for 2 weeks (my experience).
• Value the health you currently have and never take it for granted. Do what you enjoy, in case you do everything right and luck doesn't go your way. There is only so much you can control. Life is short, no regrets!