2020: the year that changed my life forever. Part 9: an update.

 Dear readers,

I would like to give you all an update on this neverending story: it's been a long way full of ups and downs, but compared to what I went through at the beginning it has been almost always on the up side. I am trying to learn to live with the consequences of what happened, as I now understand that the situation will never really go back to normal. Something in my digestive system has broken down and who knows if and when it will ever recover. At the moment, I have no intention of going back into the system and visit doctors, specialists, gurus and what not, also because there are no clear visible signs of something wrong with me. No pain, no real symptoms, no clear physical or psychological discomfort. Moreover, I already know what they are going to say: it's all in my head. Maybe later on during the year or next year, when things have improved even more, I will look for a specialist who can answer some of my questions, but it's still a little bit early for that.

In these last months I have had another couple of difficult moments after eating something that compromised my digestion for a short while, but fortunately I reacted quite well and now I've almost recovered from them. Of course, I miss the old days: feeling satiated or full after a meal, having no particular feelings or symptoms after I eat, being able to empty my bowels regularly. However, things change in life and sometimes we just have to make do with what we have.

On the other hand, none of the psycho-somatic problems and issues that I had in 2020 after my stomach infection have come back. On the contrary, after a very dark period that lasted from March / April 2020 until October / November of the same year, it has only been improving and I have fully come back to be the old me. Quoting Shania Twain: "Up, up, up, it can only go up with me" :) 

If I could go back, would I want to change anything? Well, of course: I would definitely ask my boss to cancel my participation to that conference when she came to my office to say hello on that fateful day. Most importantly, I would surely not go and have lunch at the canteen the week after the conference, the day everything started, 11th March 2020. However, this is all nonsense talk and we cannot change the past. We have to live with the consequences and make sure it does not happen again, not just only in our lives but also and mainly in the ones of the people we can reach out and help.

If there is any aim at all in our lives, it is to help each other, that's for sure. After having gone through those terrible times, I now would like to be able to help those who find themselves in similar situations. My first cries of help fell on deaf ears at the time, but you can be sure that that will not happen to yours. 

Andrew

München, 22nd July 2016

 Dear readers,

here is something that happened to me in the summer of 2016:

every summer I first go to Italy to visit friends and family and then I go to London to spend time with my mother and sister. On the 22nd July 2016 I took a train to go to München. There I would take a night train to Italy, where I would stay for about two weeks. The trip was very comfortable and the weather was nice. I also remember the people sitting next to me: it was a group of people with Down syndrome from Berlin who were going to spend a weekend in München.

The train was very punctual: we arrived at the station at 18:43, so I had quite some time before my next connection. I got off the train and walked around the station for a short while. Then I went upstairs and had a meal at Burger King. After having eaten, I went downstairs again and, as it was still quite early I stopped at the entrance to look at some pictures. It was an exhibition about a person who had spent hours and hours under the ocean. 

I decided to go to a small shop to buy a few things for the trip: a bottle of water, a snack and a milk drink. After that, I stopped in front of the shop to put the things I had bought inside my rucksack and checked the receipt. The time stamp there said it was 19:17. It was still very early, so I decided I would do what I always do when I am in München while I wait for my night train: stand in front of the information board in the middle of the station to check the departure times. I looked up and noticed that the next train leaving would be a regional train at 19:24 and the last train to depart (at the bottom right corner) was at 20:25. My train was leaving at about 9 pm, so I still had time. 

Suddenly, I started hearing a rolling sound, first distant and muffled but growing louder by the second. I noticed it was being produced by several people carrying their suitcases, moving quickly from left to right. They came from my left, from the platforms opposite me, from behind me and were all moving quickly towards the exit on the right. I also saw employees of the German railway company and platform workers coming from the trains and rushing out. All this happened in a few seconds, just over a minute at the most. In hindsight, I remember hearing a very faint sound coming from the far left, like a suitcase falling, before the sound of the rolling suitcases started, but I did not consciously hear it when it happened. Only after the event did I vaguely remember hearing something like that.

I decided to pick up my suitcase and get out of there. I had no idea what was going on and I actually had no time to think: I just went straight to the exit. I remember seeing an old man who was slowly descending the stairs just in front of me on the left and some other workers coming from the platforms on the left. I then saw a woman, visibly shocked and in tears, looking at something inside the station behind me, shouting for her mother. I decided not to turn around and to move faster. As soon as I got out, I saw several police cars parked on my left and some people standing at the bottom of the square. I started to walk towards them, thinking they were police men from the local police station, but they were bystanders. I then decided to cross the road, followed by other people behind me. While crossing, I also saw a girl wearing a t-shirt and shorts with a very big suitcase on the pavement in front of me. She was crying and being comforted by another person. I moved a bit further to the left along the pavement and turned around: more people were coming out of the station, some of them crying, others clearly upset. A man who was standing next to me mentioned what had happened a few hours before: a man had run amok, shooting people around him at the Olympic shopping centre. 

My first idea was that there were people carrying out attacks in different parts of München and I had just escaped one. In fact, after about fifteen minutes, loads of police cars arrived and four or five of them stopped just in front of the station. Five or six armed policemen got out and entered the building. Two other policemen walked around and asked people to evacuate the area. I clearly remember that when the policewoman used the word "explosives", all the people around me started to move swiftly. 

I did not know where to go, so I just took the next road to the right and walked further away. I passed a pub and saw a TV screen inside: people were watching the news. I could just read the text, but I soon noticed that nothing about the current crisis at the station was being mentioned. I found it a bit strange and walked on until I saw a group of people standing and waiting in front of a building. I decided to stop there and wait. 

After a while, I slowly started to walk back towards the station. It must have been a few minutes past eight at this point. I decided to stop in front of the station and wait for my train. I had no idea that they would close the station and cancel all trains. In fact, after a few minutes a policeman started informing people about that and asking them to go home or back to their hotels. I then realized that I had to go and find a place to sleep for the night. I found a hotel, checked in and went to my room. I called my mother to inform her about what had happened and then watched the news. Nothing was being said about what had taken place at the station: the only event they were talking about was the shooting at the Olympic shopping centre. Suddenly, I read it in the text shown below: the train station had been evacuated by the police. Nothing else.

I must say I was quite surprised and shocked: that had definitely not been an evacuation! The first police officers to enter the station arrived at least fifteen minutes after people had already started rushing out of the building. Moreover, nobody in the media ever mentioned the incident at the station. Here is a video that shows a little of what happened there: YouTube video. The guy started filming a few moments before police went in (you can see them in the video).

It does not help to learn afterwards that nothing had happened there: for me, somebody had gone amok right there at the station. I still do not know what happened there on that day, but something must have triggered panic. 

For some time after the event, every time I was in the centre of London, either at a station or on a bus, I was extremely careful and looked around me all the time. Once or twice, I remember getting off a bus because I had seen someone that looked suspicious to me. Soon I was fine again, though, and life went back to normal.

Andrew