Life like holy water

What I did next was something I had feared for a long time: I had an operation. For years, the idea felt like an invasion of my privacy. It was my body, and I didn't want anyone opening it up. But the pain kept growing, and every day I felt a little more paralysed by it. In the end, it came down to a simple choice: the operation, or slowly dying of pain. Some pain is like that, a slow kind of dying. I chose life. The operation was only the beginning. I also had to change the way I lived, starting with what I ate. I didn't realise that one decision would set off a butterfly effect, with each change leading to another. It hit me hard. Then, just when I thought the worst was behind me, I found myself in another tunnel, with a pain I couldn't |explain. I won't pretend it wasn't frightening. But I kept searching, and I found my remedy. Slowly, I came back to myself. And I want to thank the people who were there for me, truly there, when all I wanted was my own company to heal. You didn't push, and you didn't need me to explain. You just stayed close and let me come back in my own time. I will never forget it.