12 years later, after having read many books and having practised mindfulness, I look at this sentence with a pair of very different eyes… We grow and life teaches us lessons. I learnt to pay attention to what I wish for, as our wishes tend to come true.
I had started up running few weeks before and I started to feel that I had lost some weight. I was happy that my work was showing results. Or so I thought. I was running despite feeling a slight cold, I had a running nose… The park behind the dormitory was close and tempting and the feeling after the running was so great, I did not want to stop.
With the end of my visit approaching, I was having mixed feelings. I was homesick and missed Martin and my family. On the other hand, I made a very close friend and some nice connections in the lab and I enjoyed the work there a lot, as well as the whole town. But, it was time to return to Prague.
My Belgian colleague Jo was a very good cook and he invited us to his home for a goodbye dinner. He prepared a several course meal. And yes, shrimps were there too… Shrimps… I am not a fish person, I can’t stand the smell of fish and seafood has pretty much the same effect on me. But, as he was putting so much effort in the whole dinner, I ate one and it did not kill me… At the end of the many course dinner I felt a bit sick. I thought I was not well because of the shrimp or too much food. It’s what I thought… I got better and we left after a few very entertaining hours and walked with my Czech colleague to the dormitory. She had her bike with her, mine had been stolen a few days before. Typical for Leuven… As we were crossing the park, I got sick for real. This felt strange to me, it was not typical for me to feel this way… After I got better, my colleague gave me her bike, so that I got to the dormitory sooner.
The next days, I realised that I was feeling an unquenchable thirst and my vision was a bit blurred. I remember that I had to wake up at night to go to toilet, the kidneys were working hard! I had no idea what was going on, but mentioned this to my mother who was a doctor. But she did not say anything to me back then.