Does your fear of illness stop you from being productive?

At the age of 67 I had a stroke. When I had the CT scan in hospital they also discovered that I had a brain tumour. The tumour was pressing on the brain stem and the surgeon told me that he thought if they hadn’t found it when they did that I had about three months to live. But I could not allow my fear of illness stop me from being productive.

Before my stroke, I was an extremely busy and active ‘senior citizen’ (though not that fit!). I was a silk painter and sold product from my online catalogue. I was also an author and had a best seller book titled ‘How to Run a Business From Your Kitchen Table’ –a second edition was printed when the first run sold out. I wrote many e-books and had over 30 websites and blogs which my husband and I built and I wrote all the content and did the marketing.

I founded Home Based Business Australia to help others establish and be successful with their businesses, as I had done. I was soon to be known as the ‘Home Based business Guru’ and the Government invited me to sit on a number of committees to provide a voice and advise them on the needs of the sector.

Consequently I became an International speaker and presenter on such topics as how to run a successful business. I was still a very active business operator when I was struck with this ‘double whammy’.

The good news was that the tumour was benign and came out easily. The surgeon said the most dangerous part was him being able to get four centimetres inside the brain without permanently damaging me. I had a good surgeon!

The bad news was that the stroke left me with the rare condition known as ‘Alexia without Agraphia’ which simply means that I cannot read BUT I can still write! Usually if you cannot do one you cannot do the other.

To speed up my recovery I set myself goals and challenges and made sure that I was able to care for those around me (especially fellow patients); after all, they were suffering too. I was told that I would be in hospital and rehab for three months – I was home on day seven! The medical team attributed this to my determination and positive approach to everything around me, including the illness.

I needed to set myself a huge challenge to make me gain my confidence and believe that I could still be productive. So I decided to write a book titled ‘Thank God I Had a Stroke’. Every page I wrote, my husband had to read back to me so that I could assess if I had actually written what I meant to say. Can you imagine writing over a hundred pages and not being able to read what you had written, but still being able to make sense of it all? But I did it! An American company provided an excellent editor and published the book for me.

While in hospital I received orders for my silk painting. My husband contacted them all and explained what had happened and offered to return their money. Every person said they would wait until I was well enough to complete them. This was an enormous boost for my morale. I was so keen to get well enough to be able to complete the orders.

A month after my return home I received an order to design a wall mural (about the size of a door) for a Heritage Listed Building in East Melbourne. This was the first major piece I had to do after my illness. I was still somewhat weak and definitely slower than usual. So I decided to create a video on each stage so that the client would know just what was happening and would not become too impatient. I completed 5 videos and one of them made it to page one of You Tube for the keyword ‘Silk Painting’.

I also decided to develop an online Silk Painting Workshop as I could no longer get to different venues to do presentations etc. To my surprise, this has taken off well with students from as far away as America.

You most definitely can still be productive if you do not allow your fear of illness to overcome you. There is no question in my mind that the Internet is an enormous tool to have at your disposal when you want to remain productive after illness. If you are afraid of gaining skills to use the Internet, then make a huge change and learn how to use it! My husband and I teach people how to build cost effective websites and blogs or actually do the design for them and then teach them how to maintain the sites.

I now have a new philosophy ‘I can do anything I want to – I just have to figure out how’. You can do well by believing this too!