Being sick is not a vacation

Things keep changing so quickly, it feels like there is always a lot going on. I'm using the word prompts from A Chronic Voice to capture some of our life at the moment. 

It is Water Festival/Boat rowing holiday here in Cambodia. The time of year when the river changes direction and people eat dried, pounded rice. The end of the rainy season is a great time to clean the mould off everything.

Soeun has taken a group camping for this holiday the last few years, but this year they are using our backyard for holiday fun. Lots of neighbors are busy getting ready to move, so he ended up cancelling the trip.

Finishing up an infection

It’s a relief, and kind of a surprise to say our child’s sickness is finishing. With chronic illnesses so much part of our family life, I forgot some pain could heal in a matter of days.

Our child has been in pain since Thursday. After a few days of painkillers, we went to the doctor and got some antibiotics. It's Tuesday now and the pain from the ear infection is gone. We haven’t given pain meds since Sunday.

We didn't do school last Thursday or Friday. I called in a holiday at the time, but now I'm renaming it sick days. We stopped doing school because health made it hard, not so we could be refreshed.

Easing back into homeschool after a forced medical break of many months

It's not like picking up where we left off from. That day in February when the doctors told us to rush our child to the hospital we dropped everything. We had no idea it would be over 6 months before we could get our school mornings back.

It has felt like starting from scratch again. We have not jumped into the maths program I was getting them started on at the end of 2021. In late August I had the children do half an hour each morning of a maths program we used in 2020- early 2021. It felt like going backward and forwards at the same time. On the one hand, at least we are in a daily deskwork maths routine now. On the other hand, we are not using the lessons I had planned we would be doing by now.

I was never trying to school them according to what grade they would be in if they went to school. I’m aiming to help them progress through maths and English skills, so we can't really get "behind" in school work.

Comforting

Reading this book is comforting (and confronting).  If you are involved in Christian ministry, either yourself or as a supporter this is a great read, but not for the faint of heart. 

Wishing this was more obvious

Taking a medical break from school/work is not the same as a vacation/ holiday!

It sounds simple when I put it like this but I keep bumping up against this in the wrong way.

For example, we were in the hospital in February so we didn’t do homeschool that month. I was told the first little while with Type 1 in the family is intense so I thought a few months break from school was in order. March/April is our long school break/summer holiday, so we never do any school then anyway.

I tried to get started with school again in May, as that’s when I was going to start a new year anyway. But, it felt too hard. Not only were we still struggling nightly and daily with diabetes we also hadn’t had a break. While we had had a 3-month break from school, it was a time of high stress and not much sleep. I didn’t consider this when I tried to start school in May. We were exhausted, and not refreshed from our break.

I remembered back a decade ago when we were in the first years of my husband's sickness. Every break I had from work was super exhausting both physically and emotionally. For example, when I took a week of annual leave one June we had sickness all week. We spent the entire final day in the hospital, from dawn to dusk. It was a super scary day, which still impacts me even now. We got home late that night, and I turned around the next morning and went back to work. Ideally, I should have taken a break after that, but I didn’t realise that, and I don’t know if I could have organized it anyway. But I turned up for work drained. Walking straight from what I now recognise as a traumatic experience into a new term at work.

Being sick is not a vacation. I wish this was more obvious to sick people and society generally.

Thanks for reading!

Is it a holiday? Is it a conference? No, it's a...

It’s not like any other travel I’d organised before. 

It’s not a mission trip to a host country. 

It’s not a visit to a passport country. 

It’s not a holiday. 

It’s not a conference. 

It’s not going away for study.

It's a tailor-made international health trip.

Emails flying between 3 countries. Collecting the correct documents for medical matters and crossing international borders. Trying to write a budget with 3 or 4 different currencies. Scheduling doctor's appointments not knowing how long it would take to get there from my accommodation, or how I would do that with no local language or knowledge or sense of direction. Trying to choose the cheaper flights that also matched up with when counsellors and guesthouse beds would be available...   

It felt like such a hassle to have to organise it, and it was annoying that we would all need to put our lives on hold for the duration. Going away cost so much money and I needed many people’s help to make it happen. If only I didn’t live somewhere without these services, there would be no need for a trip like this. I could just slot it into our normal everyday activities.

These were my thoughts as I prepared to have our babies overseas, and more recently as I got ready for two weeks of counselling and medical appointments in a country we have no connections to.  I resented having to travel for fairly run-of-the-mill health events. 

So what was this trip like?

It was a little like a holiday, in that I was in a relaxing environment away from normal life. 

And a little like a conference in that I learnt a lot of exciting things that I’m eager to take back to my real life. 

I was in a country that was neither my passport country nor host country. Daily activities included catching taxis from my accommodation to meetings. They weren’t big group meeting though, rather individual counselling sessions or doctor’s appointments. It was great to finally be able to investigate the mental and physical health issues I had been trying to work on over the last six months.

And the accommodation wasn’t just a place to sleep. It’s a little like a guesthouse, but specifically for cross-cultural workers. People often stay and rest when they visit the town for a holiday, health care, between conferences and while in transition between countries. 

This means I was instantly part of a community of others who have similar (but very different) life experiences and who are also there for counselling, or having babies and a variety of other reasons. Joining feels so easy and enjoyable; it makes the whole experience of a health trip even more valuable. I don’t know how to describe just how amazing it is to be briefly immersed in relationships that start and end quickly but with a connection that feels so unique and deep.

And it means it felt slightly reminiscent of living on Bible college campus, each family or individual has their own place to sleep but we all eat together. Perfect balance of personal space and community life. The big difference being that instead of classes to attend there is a pool, gardens and playgrounds. Other differences are that people often arrive and depart via the international airport, and stays are usually measured in weeks rather than years. 

It also means that I could really focus on my health as food and laundry is all taken care of onsite. Counselling and getting blood tests results back is exhausting, so I didn’t have energy for much else.  The only “housework” I needed to do while there was collect drinking water from the dining room, and drop my clothes off at the laundry.

Being away from both my passport and host country meant that I was free from any distractions and obligations. I could use all my brain space and energy on the specific things I needed help with.  Instead of resenting that I had to travel for health care, I’m actually really glad now. It worked really well. I feel like it was more helpful doing it like this than doing things from home, slotted in around normal life.

I remember the same feeling when we were away to have our first baby. It had been so hard to get there, and I was annoyed I couldn’t just do things from home like pregnant friends in my passport country. But when we were there, it felt so beneficial to have that family time away while going through such a big transition.

Yes, it was expensive, time consuming, and I needed a lot of help to make it happen; especially from my poor husband who basically had to put things on hold for a couple of weeks. But it turned out to be really effective in the ways we were hoping, as well as enjoyable. In fact so enjoyable I almost didn't want to come home!  It's a strange thing to have such meaningful memories in a country we aren't connected to in any other way. 

My clean laundry waiting for me! Boring photo but exciting moment.

I was excited to see Velvet Ashes this week is all about TRAVEL. I wanted some way to remember this whole experience of a two week counselling intensive while staying in a missionary retreat, so this blog post is what I came up with. 

I enjoyed being driven around by drivers who know where to go, on smooth roads, in closed vehicles with suspension. 

Photo by Owen Beard on Unsplash

5 ways living with undiagnosed illness in the family is stressful

I couldn’t have articulated it at the time, it was too overwhelming. 

But now all these years later, and with the help of A Chronic Voice‘s  Link up prompts I’m able to explain some of the things that made the initial years of Soeun’s sickness so hard. I also want to share this with the Velvet Ashes community while the theme is "marriage".

My husband was consumed by an incapacitating, invisible, incurable disease. I didn't have any of the physical symptoms but it had a huge impact on me. 

The stressors listed here are about what it was like before we had a diagnosis; he is still sick but now but we are not in crisis. We have a name and a way to manage it.  Although some stressors are still part of our life this list is mostly in past tense. 

I’m thankful for chronic illness websites and counselling that helped me identity these stressors , I hope this list can help you and your family too.

Prompts this month: Adjusting. Hoping. Surviving. Befriending. Awakening

 1. Adjusting to unexpected change

We didn’t know we were adjusting to a new normal. It only dawned on us years later. We weren’t given a warning or time to prepare. It took us by surprise. And even after the symptoms started we kept making plans, thinking that he would get better soon. It was always about waiting to see the next doctor to work out what was wrong and how to cure it.

2. Hoping in vain for health

I was always eager to see what was around the next corner. What would the next doctor say? What would the next test results reveal?  Always hoping there will be answers or something new to try.  It was horrible seeing Soeun in pain for so long, I kept hoping it would end. Surely he will be healthy in a few weeks’ time? The frustration of watching him in pain and not knowing why motivated me to keep waiting to see that next doctor, or try that lifestyle change.

 3. Surviving without him

“When will my husband get better?” morphed into “Will he ever get better?” and we just had to live day by day.

A heavy pile of symptoms had swallowed him up. It was hard to imagine him ever coming back to life. Physically present, with all normal test results, looking healthy- but it felt like he was absent. I missed the person he was before he got sick.

Without Soeun daily stressors were harder to cope with; I was used to talking to him about everything. Happy experiences also became hard to deal with as I had been used to sharing everything with him. I discovered it was hard to enjoy anything if Soeun couldn’t enjoy it too. I didn’t know how to function without him, or even how to articulate that’s what was happening. And it felt selfish to focus on my own pain when I wasn’t even the sick one.

Living with uncertainty. Not knowing why he had gone, or having medical acknowledgement that something was wrong, not having a treatment plan, not knowing if he would come back to life or if he would be like this forever? Or would he actually die? Just surviving.

4.  Befriending and social isolation

We had just moved to a new community when the symptoms hit.  People started befriending us...well trying to anyway. When we were invited to events it became to frustrating and disappointing. We would say “yes” to an invitation but on the day Soeun would be sick so I would end up going by myself, or not going at all.

As a few one-offs that’s kind of OK, not so OK when it becomes the norm. I hated not being able to keep commitments, not being able to show people they are important to us by spending time with them.

It became easier not to make plans, and then we didn’t have the disappointment of breaking them.  So I came to dread invitations, but also dreaded that people would give up inviting us.  

The Chronic Traveller has a more poetic way to describe this- The Well of Despair.

5. Awakening and unsolicited medical advice.

I didn’t have a way to describe this at the time; it was a nameless struggle. When we shared our medical issues with people they tried to help- so why did that make me want to scream? I should be grateful for help.

It wasn’t until years later I came across websites such as The Mighty, Fruitful Today and My Migraine Brain and found others had the same struggle. The awakening was such a relief and I allowed myself to feel the bitterness that had confused me at the time. I was able to move on from delayed bitterness when I read words from a Christian teenager:

"I have to choose to respond graciously and not be bitter towards people for misunderstanding what I’m going through. They have never been chronically ill so they can’t possibly know how hard it is. Jesus has demonstrated so much grace toward me and He is teaching me to reflect Him in my relationships."

Ally, on Fruitful Today

This issue was described in a positive way recently by Erica on A Chronic Voice 7 ways to be a better friend to the chronically ill:

"2. Listen Without Trying to Provide a Solution

Sometimes I’m just frustrated and complaining. I’m not looking for you to fix the problem – I just want someone to listen. I’ve more than likely tried or heard the suggestions or advice you have to offer. Listen with an open mind and really hear what I have to say."

********

Its seems partners of the invisibly ill are likely to either end up with their own health problems too, or the relationships breaks down. I don't have any stats on that, just from the situations I've seen. When your partner keeps saying they are sick but the doctors say they are fine it looks like they are lazy and unwilling to pull their weight;  leaving may feel like the only option for some if this goes on over time.  I refer to Soeun's sickness as '"our sickness" which sometimes ends up being confusing, but its a mindset I find helpful.

Its only in recent years I've had counselors who listened first and found out the actual issue. My pain was seen, they used words like grief and trauma. At the time, all those years ago I didn't know how to explain it, and the only help I received didn't seem to have any positive impact. 

If its a choice between divorce and PTSD, I'm happy to take the trauma. But hopefully there is something in between. If you know someone in this situation it might help them to find ways to work out what is happening for them emotionally.  In last month's linkup I wrote about this under Allowing Emotion and posted some grief resources which might be helpful.

 Photo by Tony Rojas on Unsplash

8 lists of my expat life

Velvet Ashes is thinking about numbers this week.  

From reverse culture shock, to renting, moving house, bringing up cross cultural kids and English teaching- here are some lists of my expat life to date: 

6 ways  I can see my offspring's childhood is different to mine

6 lengths of time I've had to make a speedy but emotional investment in a home

7 ways reverse culture shock is like invisible illness 
See also 6 types of reverse culture shock incompetence 

5 things I like about living in Siem Reap

3 reasons for a cross cultural family to laugh at dinner time

10 things I hate about renting

3 ways parenting preschoolers is like teaching adults English

3 things I learnt in 2018

You know your offspring's childhood is different to yours when...

...the thought of a bus ride to the capital city is more exciting to them than the thought of a plane ride.

...when they ask what a seat belt is you reply “like on the plane”.

...they ask why Jesus washed the disciples feet and you don’t need to explain they wore open shoes on dusty roads. Your answer is “Because they didn’t have a tap outside their front door like us.”

...when your toddler reaches the end of the alphabet song she stops at “Y” looks to you unsure of how to sing the final letter.

...what you call biscuits, they call cookies. Then when you make biscuits with American friends they are confused as to why scones come out of the oven instead of cookies.   

...chopsticks are the first thing they grab when they see spaghetti heading to the table.

This is all from my point of view of course. If Soeun made a list it would be quite different, their childhood is so different compared to his even though our cross cultural kids are growing up in his country.

And why does this matter?  Tanya Crossman explains here:

"An important thing to grasp is that Third Culture Kids ( TCKs who become ATCKs) begin their expat journey as children, while Third Culture Adults do not live abroad until adulthood.

It might sound subtle, but the difference is actually very significant. The children of expat families are TCKs – but the parents are usually TCAs. They are living in the same country, but while parents experience and process the challenge of cross-cultural living as adults, TCKs grow up and form identity in the middle of it."

And linking up with Velvet Ashes for "Children"

3 reasons for a cross cultural family to laugh at dinner time

I had already put forks on the table, but my son got himself a pair of chopsticks when he saw we were having spaghetti.

I found it amusing. His default way to eat Italian noodles is with chopsticks. Subconsciously I thought as I was serving Western rather than an Asian meal I assumed we would eating it the Western way. But his actions makes sense, as all he's seen his whole life is people eating noodles with chopsticks. I have also eaten spaghetti with chopsticks, but only in my adult life which I would describe as 'between worlds'.

Meanwhile, Soeun is also amused. Although I think of spaghetti as a dinnertime food he doesn't. Noodles are usually only for breakfast or a snack in Cambodia, it's not a proper dinner unless you are eating rice. Even though, as an adult he has lived in Australia and many times has had to eat an evening meal of pasta.

"Like Mummy! Like Mummy!" Our daughter was (trying) to use her fork, but laughing as she did. It seemed like she also would have though using chopsticks would be the normal thing, but she was amusing herself by imitating my funny way of eating. 

So in summary: I was laughing at our son for using chopsticks, Soeun was laughing at me for serving noodles for dinner and our daughter was laughing at me for using a fork. It was a fun family meal. Eating and laughing together.

The way you eat is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to culture. The visible, the tangible bit that sticks out of the water for all to see.  We can see how our children are learning some Western and Asian ways and it is kind of fun and interesting at this point. Their childhood is different to both Soeun's and mine. I assume as they grow up they will also be forming and learning their own fusion of ways of thinking and relating, of values and worldview. The majority of the iceberg is under the water, we can't see it, at least not at first glance.

Soeun and I are also learning a bit about each other's culture but only in our adult life, while our children are doing it in their developmental years. A big difference. And the majority of "culture" is the bottom part of the iceberg that is not so obvious.

We can already see that their 'normal' is different to both their parents. Their mother grew up eating spaghetti for dinner and their father grew up eating noodles with chopsticks. They are growing up eating spaghetti with chopsticks for the evening meal. Abnormal to both Daddy and Mummy - for different reasons.

It is likely we won't understand them by default. It is likely they will sometimes feel like they belong everywhere (with both the chopsticks users and the pasta dinner people) and sometimes feel like  they belong nowhere (who else thinks chopsticks when they see Australian style Italian food?). We hope that we'll have a family culture of eating and laughing together, where they feel they belong.

Linking up with Velvet Ashes.

To my understanding friend

Dear A Life Overseas,

So our mutual friend VelvetAshes is talking about being understood this week. I first started getting to know Velvet Ashes in Instagram, then hung out in the blog and retreat and hope to join a connection group. It’s a place I feel understood, which of course made me think of you too.

I met you just over four years ago, I can’t remember exactly how we met but I remember my first feeling. Shock. I was shocked that you knew how I felt and shocked that you expressed it so well. In some cases I hadn’t really heard anyone talk about some of these things much before. It was so nice to know someone else had been through similar experiences. If that wasn’t helpful enough you also gave me ways to deal with it.

Sometimes you give me new freeing ways to think about the struggle. For example the one about people putting on the glasses of skepticism and backing off when you're dating a local.  Or this one about not hating your husband’s ministry.  Such honest conversations!

Other times you put things in their proper perspective.  Like that time I was feeling overwhelmed about the next step for us. We needed a lot of money. Where would that come from? Then a post popped up in my newsfeed reminding me that feeling like we are small is actually a good perspective to have.  When you are in a valley, big things look big as they are supposed to. Whereas praying in high places can actually be 'dizzy and dangerous' and things look topsy-turvy.

Occasionally it feels like you are right beside me giving me commentary on what is happening, and helping me to think about how to go forward well. Like that night my fear response was taking over my logic, as we made a late night trip to the clinic. I knew my husband’s condition probably wasn’t serious but my brain was tricking me into reliving those times I thought he was moments from death. You were hinting that knowing this is actually a positive thing, and could help me serve better in the future. It's like you know what I'm going through today, and where I need to be headed tomorrow. 

And so many times you make me laugh about the stressful issues I face. Like this one about the re entry process, or this one about returning overseas (I think I laughed while reading...or was that an anxiety attack?!) 

Neither my passport country nor my host country friends can really understand my feeling about home, but you look at it from so many angles. Forbidden roots and tent pegs to name a few. And the numerous posts about saying goodbye and about being a mother come to mind. You totally "get" me!

Photo: Juniper Tree, Chiang Mai, Thailand. When I'm feeling not blue enough for my passport country, and not yellow enough for my host country I need green spaces like this!  A Life Overseas Blog is like my daily green space.

Looking back on the last few years you even knew some of my needs before I did, and managed to bring them to my attention. You always mention both counselling and TCK issues. It is as if you are assuming they should be a normal part of my life. I hadn't thought about it like that before I got to know you. Both sounded irrelevant and a bit painful based on past experience but once I started having counselling sessions and began reading about TCKs I realised you were right. It turns out that the TCK book you keep quoting from is also relevant to cross cultural kids generally, not just one narrow subset like I'd assumed. 

There are so many other posts I could mention as I thank you for being an understanding friend, and I'm also glad you've introduced to me to other blogs and books. So grateful for the way you express and explain so many of my expat emotions; and for equipping me to live well while being too foreign for here or there.

Sincerely, 
A Fan 

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

6 lengths of time I've had to make a speedy but emotional investment in a home

3

THREE MONTHS

A string of fairy lights ties my first pregnancy/newborn memories to a night market in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We decorated our house with the lights, along with postcards and photos. It felt like our place for those 90 days of maternity leave from Cambodia/Australia.

I tried to make our room feel like home as quickly as possible (without investing too much) as we were only going to be there for three months. 

10

TEN MONTHS

I tacked up, taped up and tied up satiny scarves from the Russian market and photos of friends and family to begin  my first year in Cambodia. The walls were covered in brown marks from the last person's taped up posters, the ceiling was really low and there was little natural light or air flow.

 It was hot and uncomfortable but I needed to make my room feel like home as quickly as possible (without investing too much) as I was only going to be there for ten months.

11

ONE  (academic) YEAR (multiplied by about 6)

Again, photos up on the wall straight away in my Australian student accommodation (and sometimes a rainbow mirror ball). Some years it was my uni course, Bible college year or husband's Bible college.

I tried to make my/our room/s feel like home as quickly as possible (without investing too much) as we were only going to be there for about 11 months.

18

EIGHTEEN MONTHS

To combat the dark, cold months of a north east Chinese winter I bought a gaggle of pot plants for my flat, as well as arranging  photos and pictures above the radiator. The colourful doona cover I received from friends at uni decorated my sofa. Finding a place for the washing machine, that still allowed me to use the kitchen and the bathroom was a big challenge but thankfully got done.

I needed to make my room feel like home as quickly as possible (without investing too much) as I was only going to be there for eighteen months.

24

TWO YEARS?

The patterns breaks down here, I would have loved making it home straight away, especially as we had come from 2 years of stress and were due to have a baby in 6 months...however, the owners were selling so we had to go month by month not knowing if they were going to kick us out- so stressful not to be able to make it feel like home, it had felt like such an essential thing to do all the other times I've moved house. I need a home to rest in so I can function.  

48

FOUR YEARS

Again, the pattern breaks down but for a happier reason. When we knew we would be in the same house for FOUR YEARS we attached hooks and hung empty photos frames on the wall. No need to rush putting photos in, there's plenty of time to do that later. We didn't need to make it feel like home as quickly as possible, as we would be there for FOUR YEARS. So when it came time to pack up we laughed when we took down the still empty photo frames...

I didn't really get interested in last week's Velvet Ashes word until I read The Grove and the readers blog linked up. When I did I realised this is an aspect of expat life I want to record here.  This isn't an exhaustive list of house moves but its the general vibe of the last 20 years.

Photo credit:

Nong Vang