Horsemanship for Health

One thing about illness I always forget. It takes us by surprise. I knew I would probably get Covid. I shook the hand of a gentleman I knew was ill – streaming ill – enough for me to think – maybe I shouldn’t have done that? But I did and I have just recovered from three days in bed as the virus took its course.

Before I got ill this time, I spoke of the virus as the great disrupter. Weddings, it was my nephew’s wedding where I met the virus again, funerals, christenings, birthday parties, celebrations, humans are meant to gather, and we resent the intrusion of the unwanted guest. If Covid had not been present at this particular occasion, we would all have been better off. Guests would not have had to wear masks or leave early or continually wash their hands or wonder if next week they might have to rearrange their working days.

Covid is as common now as a cold. It has taken its place in the family of diseases we have to embrace each year. And because it has become so familiar, unremarkable even despite its devastating impact on the world, we have become indifferent. We don’t pay it respect.

I thought I would isolate and wait for the fever to subside. Once I started feeling normal and tested negative, I would return to the world. This is one level of engaging with the virus. The deeper level of engagement has also taken me by surprise.

On day two I was really angry at the virus for creating such havoc in the world, for existing only to create pain and suffering and terrible hardship. I was also irritated that I would have to rearrange my whole week around its needs instead of my own. Horse care – thank you incredible volunteers- garden and project management- again thank you wonderful volunteers. Online Meetings – thank you supportive NHS colleagues. Shopping – I didn’t feel like eating so no problem there, and walking the hound. We managed to get out to do what he needed to do and mostly we rested inside and played with slippers and thinking games when he became bored. I had it covered.

On day three when I felt worse, I started to question my perspective. What if Covid were not here to be dismissed, eradicated, derided as the great inconvenience of our modern times, what if we started to respect it more? Listen to what it had to say because, like any annoying visitor, it has come because it needs a place to stay.

If we unleashed Covid on the world – accidentally or not – there is even more reason to look it in the eyes and ask it – what do you want? This is the thinking game I have been playing with the hound. Tell me what you want? Do you want to go out (eyes brighten, ears waggle, nose twitches – yess!) or do you want more food (eyes soften, ears flatten, nose rests on paws, head tilts towards his feed bowl – yess!). It’s been much harder to read what Covid wants, but I have been asking, impatiently at first, and as the sickness took hold of body and mind, more respectfully.

Respect was not a word I would have considered putting into the same sentence as Covid but after a conversation with my sister who is also ill and off work, I realised that I have been denying the power of illness. I have absorbed the Western medical mindset which allows us the freedom to disrespect anything that gets in our way. We expect good health if we look after our diet and exercise and breathe clean air. When illness comes along to remind us of our frailty, we get outraged.

Covid has given me time to pause and reflect. I’ve read good books, listened to podcasts even diagnosed and repaired my shut down fridge. Mostly, though, I have listened to it. What do you want, I have asked it, time and again?

The answer is sobering. I want you to respect me. To know that I have power. I want you to see me for who I am. And I am beginning to see that shift of perspective around illness – just because I live in a privileged society with all its ability and capacity to respond to disease – does not mean that I am immune. I am smiling because even as I write this, I know that I am not going to stop trying to improve my immunity and have even ordered a book on the subject. Not because I want to get well fast. Not because I want the secret of long life or good health, or any of the promises offered on the covers of such books. I want to explore deeply what it means to live with the constant presence of recurring illness and make room for it in my life. It is here to stay.