What is the difference between determination and delusion?

There is something that I have often thought about, and always found curious when it comes to human nature - what makes one person decide to draw the line and another person decide to keep going? What is the difference between determination and delusion? And how far is too far, or not far enough?

I have spent a lot of time deliberating over these things in the past few years.

When someone asks me, “When did you decide you wanted to be a vet?”, my answer is always the same - “I have absolutely no idea”. I can’t remember a time when I ever wanted to do anything else, aside from a brief phase where I thought I might like to be a farrier (but perhaps that was just for tea and cakes!).

Okay, so…let’s skip back another few years to explain how I ended up in this situation in the first place.

I was trundling through school just fine, getting pleasing GCSE results, and was dedicated to my sports, and so the promise of Vet Med was looking good. I had a part-time/summer job with a fantastic equine vet called Mr. Suffern. Looking back on it, he probably thought me a bit odd for turning up to work in a beat-up Ford 6610 tractor (max speed, 27mph) with no back window and Dolly Parton blasting from the wireless. (Not exactly what you might call COOL when you’re seventeen, but, as my Dad used to say, second class driving is better than first class walking!).

I had just moved to a new sixth form and all was going well. Chemistry, Biology, Physics and Maths - a nerd living the dream, until…

I got myself a CAR! A Fiat Punto to be precise. I started living life in the fast lane (max speed now 49mph). This particular phase of my life is called ‘trading what you want for what you want right now’, starting with nights out with friends and a new found interest in rugby (or, as the guy who fate would have it is now my husband would like to think, more of an interest in a particular rugby player - big head!). This resulted in the studies going from being top of the priority list to some box of books under my bed that never got to see the light of day. To say that I was now heading off-road would be an understatement.

So what happened next, you ask?

Well, the next thing I knew, there was a midwife handing Chris a bouncing baby boy along with her congratulations, friends and family showering us with presents and balloons, along with a massive smack round the back of the head from reality!

We had gone from being carefree, fun-loving young adults, to sitting in a hospital room gazing down at this little bundle of joy. All of a sudden, our outlook on life became very different. “What if?” became so familiar, plans go from being week to week to the next 6 months and beyond, something I’m sure is true not only for parents but for anyone who has the responsibility of caring for someone.

I guess life has a very funny way of turning your plans upside down, and perhaps learning to accept and embrace it is the actual challenge of life? Often easier said than done, I must admit.

So, with that, I took a last breath, thought of what could have been, and closed the chapter on my dream of becoming a vet for good.

I got myself a job in a large department store as an assistant manager. I was working in the city, in an industry that was initially quite alien to me, driving sales and setting targets with figures that make Monopoly look conservative. So I learned the rules and played the game; I got to go to work well dressed (wearing make-up!), and was well paid (nothing more than a fading memory these days!). But it seemed that the better things were going in work, the more targets reached, commission and pats on the back I received, the more I wished somehow things had worked out differently. To the outside world, it looked like the perfect job, and the perfect little life - but in reality, I was a million miles from where I really wanted to be.

However, city life did offer one thing I loved, and this was the chance to meet some of the most fascinating characters. One in particular was a lady called Barbara Bell, who, unbeknown to me, was a prominent paediatric consultant, and the person who, if I ever get the chance to meet again, I can inevitably thank for giving me the courage to turn my life around (or upside down – whichever way you want to look at it.)