At this point in time, I was starting to get fed up of chess and I desperately wanted to take a break from the game as I continued life in a dysfunctional state. I ended 2010 feeling weak and feeble, with headaches, colds, sleeping problems and fatigue threatening to ruin the quality of my life forever. My frustration got worse with every defeat as I was going through a phase of "Chess Blindness" were I was struggling to see certain details of a chess position. Despite all of this, I still found myself playing 5 games for my county in the 2010/11 season. I remember feeling weak in each one of them. The long trips in other people's cars and the conversations that I had no interest in just sapped my already limited energy even more.
In Early 2011, I was taken to an appointment at Queen Mary's Hospital in Roehampton for a CAT scan to see if there is anything wrong with my brain in order to try to find an answer to why I was getting frequent persistant headaches. Eventually, the doctor confirmed that I actually had a healthy brain but also diagnosed me with sinusitis. They said that it was blockage in the sinuses that was causing the headaches.
By the spring of 2011 I was seriously contemplating retirement as I was consistently and persistently suffering from ailments.
I would normally play in the Surrey Individual tournaments during the summer, but in 2011 I decided to take a break from the game as I continued to feel dysfunctional with my seemingly never-ending symptoms. This was the kind of break I waited all season for. With all of my struggles both on and off the chessboard, losing game after game, losing so many days at work, losing trust with my own body and ultimately, losing my confidence in life.
So what else to do during the summer? During the spring of 2011 I was made aware about a 6-week course called "Loving Life" by my local Buddhist centre where I had been attending meditation classes since early 2010. It was a course that was based on a meditation practice called the "Metta Bhavana" or "The development of loving kindness". The aim of the course is to explore positive emotion for ourselves and for other people. Every session was on a Tuesday night from 7 to 9:30 pm. However, I remember feeling faint after the second session and one of the ordained Buddhists who was co-leading the course giving me a glass of water to help regain my conscience. Despite this experience, it was an enjoyable course overall where we really looked into the meaning of love, compassion, self respect and inner peace.
In July 2011 I was invited to my local hospital Croydon University Hospital. (Formally Mayday Hospital) to see an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist. She tried to stick a small telescope in my nostrils. (Sounds painful and it was) I was so sensitive to the telescope that before she could see anything inside my nostrils I reacted with a violent irritation. Shaking my head and rubbing my nose at lightning speed. The doctor eventually re-diagnosed me with allergic rhinitis, better known as hay-fever. Finally my mystery illness had a name!
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