So the week started normally. An hour and a half driving, nine hours on the tractor seat, going up and down, up and down, then ninety minutes driving home again. Thanks to the wonders of digital radio, air conditioning and blue tooth phones, hot days in the hot seat had become more bearable but still…

On this occasion something was different though. Wimbledon had finished, no longer that delicious backdrop, no one seemed to answer their phone and the day was grey. And so was my mood. 

At about eleven o’clock, my body decided it needed to stop. Vision became blurred, head was throbbing, legs were tingling and I was beginning to pass out. I stopped the tractor and tried to work out what to do. I rang 111, which whilst frustrating, my speech by this time was slurred, did eventually lead to an ambulance being summoned to the field. Could I tell them where I was? What post code? What house number? It’s a field… Thank goodness for What3Words, but try it when you’re befuddled. 

A farming friend came over and secured everything whilst I was plugged into the system. Most of the symptoms of a stroke. Test after test. Scans. X-rays. CT scan. Sky high blood pressure. Two days in hospital being a pin cushion. Four litres of saline and glucose drips. I spoke with the duty doctor who said it wasn’t a stroke, but a near thing. She said that “We’ve now lowered your BP, done our job, bye.” 

“Hang on…   at this rate with nothing being changed, I’ll be back to see you next week.”

“That,” the doctor said, “is not our problem. We’ve lowered your pressure, done our job, bye.”

So the entourage whooshed away and I was left wondering what the heck to do. In my head the BP was already climbing again. 

Home and time to think. Over and over. And then over-thinking. 

But I do now have a plan. I’m self-employed with four major customers. One of the four causes more issues than any of the others and I work for them three or four days a week, depending upon the time of year. What were the issues? 

Lone working. Lack of resources. On my own all the time. Fragile headspace – got the breakdown t-shirt seven or eight years ago with all the associated clutter. No-one to bounce things off. No banter. No interaction with people. A personality clash with one of the few I had to. Machinery breakdowns. Problems with the crops. Big problems with the crops. 

So yesterday I met the MD of that company and we had a pow wow. He was a friend long before I worked for him and was quite shocked how I felt his company had let me down. We agreed an action plan where I dropped my work with him to two days a week and won’t be put in the situation of lone-working again, or at least manage it much more carefully. Obviously a drastic effect on income, but what comes first? I’ve finally decided on me.

Andrew

A Moodscope member