A Low Point

Got back to the old routine today and generally the day went well, but around about 10.00 in the morning I experienced one of those moments when my little world seemed particularly shaky. Fortunately it was just a moment but it was a striking reminder of my fragility.

What happened was this. I'd just completed a round of examination invigilation and was on my way back to the staffroom with a colleague with whom I needed to discuss something. The discussion itself was fine, but I became aware in its course of my voice becoming increasingly croaky. By the time we wound things up I was barely able to speak, but needed a quick word with someone else, who commented on just how sore my throat sounded. The really worrying thing was that some twenty or so years back I completely lost my voice several times when teaching for periods of a couple of days and I had a strong sense that the same thing was about to happen again. I was trying to figure out a way to cope with the week's work if this were to happen as I went to my desk and it was very difficult indeed to reach any workable conclusions.

My next task was checking the numerous emails I'd received whilst invigilating. One or two took a bit of sorting out, as expected, but the last one managed to intensely worry me as I completely misread it. There was a perfectly innocent reference in it to an administrative procedure which needed to be done but for some reason I thought it was talking about a similar procedure I should have carried out earlier in the year but had somehow completely forgotten about. Again I found my brain racing trying to figure out what to do about this with a very distinct sense of panic.

Some fifteen minutes later I figured out that I had carried out the procedure in question, back in early April, but in my dotage had completely forgotten all the details. The email was actually referring, quite sensibly, to something that needed to be done as a follow-up to an exam tomorrow, which was easy to arrange. And then, coincidentally, I managed a conversation some five minutes later and found a stronger version of my voice under all the croaking.

So that was it: two-pronged panic over and all was well. It's not much of a story, is it? All a bit pathetic. But the relief was very real and very welcome and I'm happy to think about it. Some colleagues seem to think of me as a reasonably calm sort of chap. If only they knew...