Hello lovely readers and welcome to the first instalment of Life with Mel & Em!

Em and I are VERY excited to have finally launched Llamas in a Fishbowl.  I say ‘finally’ because this has been in the works for awhile now.  We … (ahem, I) … got a little sidetracked for a couple of reasons.

The blog

First, this blogging lark is not quite as easy as some make it out to be.  It could be, I suppose, but it hasn’t been for me.  You see, I decided that I needed to learn EVERYTHING up front.  This, my friends, was a huge mistake.

The more rabbit holes I went down the more I realised how little I knew.  I was determined to get to grips with all aspects of blogging up front.  A typical type A personality fault – I admit it.  It was time to stop the spit and polish and just launch this sucker, warts n’ all.  I’ll figure it out as I go.

So ta da! Em and I are now officially bloggers! Woo hoo! We didn’t quite anticipate that we would also be website designers, graphic artists, photographers, writers, editors, business and social media managers but hey ho.  A lot to learn (and we clearly aren’t done) but it’s been a lot of fun.  We’ve learned so much that we’ve decided to document our blogging journey in a series called ‘Behind the Blog‘ where we set out what we’ve learned and give out some top tips. Hopefully, if you’re interested, it will save you some time or at least provide you with a bit of a roadmap.  We’ll update it with new topics along the way.

A bit of a health scare

The second reason for the delay is this little thing called LIFE.

In late June of 2017, I decided to take the summer off.  The goal was to launch the blog and spend time with the kids before they went off on their various adventures.  Unfortunately, the day after I told my employer about my sabbatical plan, I suddenly became quite seriously ill.

I came home from work just feeling slightly tired. Within an hour I had the most awful and debilitating stomach pains.  After a several hours of suffering, the kids said ‘enough’ and called an ambulance.

By midnight I had a tube up my nose and into my stomach (ugh) and was rushed into emergency surgery to remove a 3.5 inch piece of my small intestine that had twisted and was near rupture.  A weird event for someone of my age and health.  Arggh.  Just goes to show that life can turn on a dime.

Cancer

I was well on my way to recovery when I got the bad news.  It was cancer.  A small neuro-endocrine carcinoid.  A tumour.  It turns out though that I am a very, very lucky girl.

This type of cancer usually goes completely undetected until it has spread. The tumour they removed was less than 6mm and normally would go unnoticed. My body reacting the way it did saved me from a major and potentially life threatening problem.

The good news is that it is a very slow growing type of cancer and it was caught very early.

I have now been scanned and tested to the hilt and will be tested every 6 months from now on.  If it returns (which it may) then further surgery will be required but now that I’m ‘on the radar’ it will be caught very early and hopefully before it causes the same problem as before. An eye opening experience, let me tell you. It has literally changed the direction of my life. A cliche, but true.

Looking forward

So much for taking the summer off to work on the blog!  Instead, I used that time to recover from my surgery and be with the kids. I also devoted my time to learning all I could about managing my health.

What I discovered was so interesting and useful for my situation that I decided to try to find a way to share it with others. I’m now almost half way through the health coach programme at the Institute of Integretative Nutrition in New York and will be qualified as a personal trainer soon.

I decided to totally switch up my life and I’m enjoying the ride.

Em and I have added to the original focus of Llamas in a Fishbowl to follow me on this new path and share what we learn along the way in addition to all the other fun stuff we have planned.

It has been a bit cathartic to write this post so thank you for reading to this point and we hope to see you in our next instalment of Life with Mel & Em.