It’s been an odd one

2023 has been pretty wild. 2023. 2023? That number seems even crazier when I consider I last posted on this blog something like two years ago. Well, I’m still here. I suppose this post is what happens when you get an e-mail telling you that nearly 80 quid has disappeared from your PayPal on a subscription to a platform you forgot you even use.

The old cliché of ‘a something of two halves’ is appropriate, though. Rather like the year itself, let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first. 

January-July

In late January I began to experience the odd headache. I’ve never had any serious health issues before (spoilers), so I didn’t think much of it. I first noticed it while teaching a class of precocious year 7 students, so I really didn’t think much of it at all.

When it got to the first half-term break of the calendar year, though, and the headaches were still creeping in, I started to entertain the thought that I, a 5’7 (on a good day), moderately overweight (on a good day), easily stressed (on most days) guy may not be the picture of perfect physical health after all.

So, I did what all reasonable, responsible people would do, and waited a further week in the hope that a solid amount of sleep and normal, non-school-classroom-lighting would abate the headaches and I’d be able to brush it off. It seemed to be working, at first. The headaches slowly died away over the course of that week, but then I noticed little red dots appearing on my torso.

Without wanting to paint too much of a mental image for you, I first noticed these dots whilst I was in the bath. I therefore naïvely dismissed them as heat spots. That is, until they didn’t go away and I realised the headaches hadn’t quite gone, either.

I went to the hospital. I know I should have stuck to a GP appointment, given the stresses on the NHS, particularly following the last few years. In my defence, I genuinely have never had any medical issue requiring proper treatment in my life (that I can remember, at least) and so, to put not too fine a point on it, I was sort of bricking it by this point. The GP surgery, when I phoned, told me an appointment would be at a minimum 18 days’ wait. So, to the hospital I went.

I explained the headaches and showed the dots to triage, and was admitted for some blood tests, which came back showing inflammation markers off the scale. Something was pretty wrong with me. After determining that I was at least not infectious, I was sent home and my blood results sent to my GP.

At this point I feel obliged to state that I really like my GP. He’s a lovely man and, from what I understand, very highly regarded in the local area. It is absolutely no slight on him when I tell you that he, despite trying his best, was unable to give me a certain diagnosis. I ended up in a sort of limbo state where the headaches were gone, for the mostpart, the marks on my torso were there, but causing no discomfort at all, and I wasn’t really suffering. So I agreed to keep an eye on my symptoms, call back if anything changed/went downhill, but otherwise carry on.

I did so for around 2 more weeks, at which point I began to feel very run-down. It’s hard to put into words, as this is the only major health problem I remember having. There were days I struggled to get out of bed. It was like a very bad cold had been added to my existing symptoms. To this day, it may just have been that; a cold. But after recovering from that particular set of symptoms, things began to deteriorate on an almost daily basis.

My skin problems seemed to creep up my body like a wave, causing first a number of patches of dry skin on my neck and face that lasted a few weeks. I was prescribed Dermol and an antibiotic after being diagnosed by a Locum at the hospital up the road from my work with something called Pityriasis Rosea. Another spoiler warning; this was a misdiagnosis and I was told by my GP to stop taking that particular antibiotic immediately.

This was the first sign of the inflammation, the root cause of all my symptoms, reaching and settling in my head. And boy howdy, how did it set itself up a little nest there.

I won’t keep you in suspense. I was eventually, tentatively diagnosed with something called Sarcoidosis and, specifically, Neurosarcoidosis. This is just the working theory, however, because the other option was Lupus, but I apparently didn’t quite have the right set of symptoms for them to be confident in diagnosing that.

This diagnosis unfortunately didn’t come until around the end of July, though. Two weeks before a pretty significant life-event that I’ll come to in the happier part later!

In the meantime, I continued to struggle and be significantly affected by inflammatory issues like uveitis in both of my eyes, which caused them to be bloodshot and incredibly light-sensitive unless treated with corticosteroid drops that seriously impacted my eyesight. This uveitis also recurred several times before I had a successful treatment for the underlying Sarcoid issue, so it was nesting in my eyes long enough to cause lasting damage. I now can’t look at a bright background, be it a screen, a sheet of paper or the sky, without being very aware of a number of floaters that developed over the course of my eye treatment.

Also affected by this inflammation in my head were my ears; causing temporary limited hearing loss, my brain, causing some issues with short-term memory, and significant mood swing issues. The skin issues on my face also became less dry skin and more unsightly red, raised patches that have left slight scarring in places. These also existed on my arms and chest, but were less of an issue for obvious reasons.

I realise I’ve rushed through that last part, despite it being perhaps the part that affected me the worst psychologically, especially when the skin issues reached my scalp and caused some hair thinning. I’ve never thought of myself as vain before, but during this ordeal I was constantly aware of and somewhat embarrassed by my appearance. Perhaps I’ve rushed this because it’s still quite difficult to think about.

Nonetheless, the doctors, with the help of a highly rated dermatologist whom I shall forever be indebted to, decided on a treatment they believed could work and, lo and behold, it seems to have done.

Now that part’s over – on to the second half of the year, and what a comeback it was.

August

August 2023 was interesting, and it changed both the course of my year and my life for the better. Firstly, I had a diagnosis and a treatment that seemed to be working on my health problems.

Secondly, and most importantly, I got married.

I know. Me. Married.

It still feels a little odd to say, but someone wanted to spend the rest the rest of their life with me. Me. Wild.

It was an incredible day. Without a doubt the best day of my life by a country mile. Finally, things were looking up.

Just prior to this, I had also been offered my first full time teaching position, despite the questionable impact of my health on my performance in the months leading up to the summer. It was a job in a school that I had done around 15 months of supply teaching for immediately beforehand, and it is a school I truly love working at.

September

It was only a couple of weeks of settling into married life and my first proper teaching job that my wife and I viewed, and quickly made an offer on a house. To our delight, the offer was accepted within a week and we were suddenly facing the prospect of being a pair of married, gainfully employed homeowners. Yikes.

Although we’ve since had a couple of delays on the house, we are due to move in early in the new year, and we really couldn’t be happier about it.

November

In early November, I took another plunge, and decided it was time to publish my novel. I’d tried a handful of traditional publishing agencies, but had gained no traction there and, as writing is a hobby of mine from which I’ve never expected a great deal of financial gain, I quite impatiently decided to bite the bullet and publish independently.

I’ve never been one to overestimate my own abilities or attempt to inflate my own ego by any stretch of the imagination, but I am immensely proud of my novel. I should think so, too, given that it took 4 years from conception to publishing. That little thing called life kept getting in the way! Still, it’s out there now, and as I’ve mentioned I am very proud of it.

I suppose this counts as a plug. Save for the mandatory participation in ‘writers’ lifts’ on X (formally known as Twitter, don’t get me started) and the odd Facebook post, I haven’t done a great deal of marketing. But, if you read this and you’d be interested in a novel about family, substance abuse and commitment set in modern day New York, and you want to make my day, you can find it here:
https://shorturl.at/pUV56
or search for The Brothers Valentine by Dan Wheeler on Amazon. It’s available on Kindle too, and free if you’re subscribed.

December

With my wife and I’s last Christmas together in our little flat fast approaching, it’s certainly got me feeling remisicent about this year. I’m not exaggerating when I say there was a couple of months, particularly after my Doctors had suggested the lifelong auto-immune condition Lupus as a possible cause of my problems, that I spent a lot of time catastrophizing about my future.

Now, I really am overwhelmed by the positivity I can now see in front of me, and am incredibly grateful to those that helped me get through the first half of this weird, weird year, and have been a part of what has made the second half so very special.