Putting Things Into Perspective

I had the blues because I had no shoes until upon the street, I met a man who had no feet.

Ancient Persian Saying

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Depending on how often you swing by here to read this drivel inspiring prose, you may have noticed that I was having a bit of a bad day yesterday... never fear, faithful readers, I’m not back on here today to do more biatching about the sorry state of my life... but rather to tell you how the day ended, and how it certainly put things into perspective for me, at least.

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With the way things were going yesterday, I was in two minds about heading out to our regular Thursday evening Aikido class. Fully expecting to break an ankle, acquire a black eye or have someone crash land their fat ass on my head (again!)... and all that before I’d even gotten out of the parking lot and into the sports centre... I was pleasantly surprised to have a really good class.

I could actually grasp the techniques being taught fairly easily, Sensei did not haul me up in front of the class to show up my ineptness (under the guises of “demonstrating” what needs doing) and the aerobic exercise was doing me a world of good.

Towards the end of the class, it became apparent that one of the guys (Sweaty Man*) was not feeling too well. I’d actually spoken to him at the start of class, as he hadn’t been for a while and I wondered if he’d been away on holiday... he had in fact been ill with a rather nasty inner ear infection (labyrinthitis), that had kept him bedbound for weeks. Sweaty Man was taking strain and went to sit out at the side and drink some water, but he was clearly not right.....

Slurred speech, loss of the use of his right arm, his face seemed droopy on one side.... alarm bells started ringing! These are the classic symptoms of stroke!

B charged off to call an ambulance and paramedics were on the scene within minutes. They checked Sweaty Man over and said it was almost certainly a recurrence of his labyrinthitis (the symptoms are almost identical!), but they would take him into hospital for observation.

In the meantime, some of us were going through the emergency contact numbers we’ve all had to provide, thinking someone should let his wife know... but before anyone could pick up the phone, Sensei told us quietly that Sweaty Man had split up from his wife a few weeks’ back so perhaps she was not the best person to call.

Poor bloke! His marriage is breaking down and he has some serious health issues... he really is having a bad time. Kind of made my little problems of porridge exploding in the microwave and clients being their usual annoying selves seem...well, quite trivial and pathetic, really.

Sensei accompanied Sweaty Man to the hospital... and was thankfully able to report later that Sweaty Man had recovered, that it was indeed his ear problem giving him hassles. So, all’s well that ends well, and today is Friday!

Happy weekend, everyone!

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* I have nicknames for many of my fellow Aikidoers... Tattoo Man, Burpy Man, Spider Man, Get-A-Pedicure-Man! and so on that I wrote about here and here.