Latest posts by Martin Moodie (see all)
- How I overcame Severe Tire Damage to become the oldest influencer in town - April 20, 2024
- Free as a (Kiwi) bird and flying high in Haikou - April 13, 2024
- Discovering Food Accademia’s world of fine flavours at a Hong Kong cha chaan teng - April 6, 2024
Fall seven times, stand up eight.
– Japanese Proverb
The Bumrungrad International Hospital bureau of The Moodie Report here in Bangkok is now running at full capacity.
I’ve got over the blues of being dispatched to hospital early on in The Trinity Forum and looking forward with a little luck to being discharged later this week.
With nothing else to do (I’m not the bed-bound, TV-watching type) I’ve slotted back into a kind of work normality. I’ve done my job from some unlikely places during my globetrotting days of the past nine years but this is probably the pick of the bunch.
Bumrungrad is an impressive facility; it’s got a world-class medical team, excellent rooms (including good Wi-Fi) and the friendliest staff on the planet .
In my case it’s also got lots of colour – my room resembles a florist’s at present. Beautiful bouquets have arrived from a number of industry friends wishing me well. So I’m delighted to say that the superb medical team here has both identified and fixed the problem and that it represents a temporary, albeit deeply frustrating, glitch on my road to recovery rather than a major setback. As Nietzsche wrote: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
There are lessons from all this, of course. Possibly one should not go from a standing start to moving at a million miles an hour. More than a few industry friends and Moodie Report colleagues are no doubt thinking “I told you so” right now. I am heeding that advice. I promise. Maybe…
In recent months several fellow cancer survivors in this industry have told me they made the mistake of trying to come back too fast and warned me to be careful. They were right.
It’s a tricky balancing act though. The mind recovers quickly after a serious illness and often springs into turbo-charge mode, partly in sheer relief at having come through the dark times, partly in a powerful desire to reclaim normality. And one cannot simply give in to setbacks and crises. The human spirit must reclaim the ground it has lost through adversity. As one of my great heroes, Sir Edmund Hilary (the Kiwi who in 1953 became the first man to climb Mount Everest) said: “It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves. “
The body, though, needs more careful nurturing. It’s time to admit that perhaps. For despite the excellent surroundings here, I would dearly, dearly like to avoid setting up any more temporary Moodie Report hospital bureaus in the future.
Martin our dear friend and colleague please take a rest and take it easy for your body to recover. my thoughts are with you.
Jo
Martin, I’ve been kept abreast of your progress via Sunil and its great to learn that you will be out of Hospital today incha alla, heading back to UK in a few days. I am, like many others, very relieved.
It must have been very difficult for you and your family during the uncertainty of the past few days.
Please please please Moodie San get some rest and lay off work pressure until you are ready again. Whilst we all missed you from 1100 am onwards on Day 1 of the Trinity Forum, your team managed to go through the whole program without any hitches.
Travel safe
Peter
p.s nice nightie you are wearing
p.p.s Bum Run Grad (Hospital) is one word or three ?