The Missing Buses: What Sally's Symptoms Might Be Trying to Tell Us

One night, I had a dream. Or perhaps it was a fever dream brought on by equal parts healthcare, bureaucracy, and one too many episodes of Utopia.

Meet Sally.

Sally works in middle management at a bus company. She's competent, organised, and spends most of her day standing between the people doing the work and the people making the decisions. Also known as "the pinch point."

Sally oversees a great team. The mechanics are highly skilled and take pride in keeping the fleet running. The drivers are experienced professionals who safely transport commuters across the city. The cleaners keep the buses hygienic and pleasant. Customer service handles the endless administration and passenger complaints with remarkable patience.

For years, the system has worked reasonably well. But then a problem emerges.

The bus manufacturers have stopped making buses. No one knows exactly why. Market forces. Strategic realignment. Synergies. Whatever the reason, buses are being gradually withdrawn from service, and no replacements are arriving.

The mechanics notice first.

"We can’t get the buses out of circulation to service them."

The drivers notice next.

"We don't have enough buses."

The commuters notice shortly after.

"There seem to be fewer buses."

The discord filters through to Sally, who dutifully carries it up the management chain.

Committees are formed. Round tables are held. Stakeholder consultations occur.

Several people create PowerPoint presentations.

Months later, a solution is announced.

To better utilise existing resources, commuters should simply spread their travel across the day rather than all wanting to travel during peak times

The management team congratulates itself on its innovative thinking. The commuters are unimpressed. The mechanics point out that there are still fewer buses. The drivers point out that there are still fewer buses.

Sally conveys the growing frustration to those above her pay grade.

More committees. More consultations. More strategic planning.

A second solution emerges.

The problem, management explains, is that everyone is thinking too ridgidly. If each bus were divided in two, there would be twice as many buses.

This is presented as transformational thinking.

Meanwhile, the mechanics quietly explain that cutting buses in half creates two broken buses. The drivers wonder how they are supposed to drive half a bus. The commuters are unconvinced. The remaining fleet now requires increasingly heroic efforts to keep operational. Everyone is working harder while accomplishing less.

Morale begins to slide; management attributes it to resistance to change.

And, Sally stoically conveys feedback both up and down the chain.

After another lengthy period of reflection, the executive team unveils its masterpiece.

"We've solved it."Everyone leans forward.

"We are getting a train."

The executives congratulate themselves on their vision and forward thinking.

Never mind that there are no tracks. Never mind that nobody knows how to drive a train.

Never mind that the mechanics repair buses, not locomotives. Never mind that commuters still need transport tomorrow morning. A train is clearly the future.

Amid the back-patting and congratulations, Sally quietly wonders whether anyone has noticed that the original problem was simply a shortage of buses.

Then I woke up. And for reasons I can't quite explain, I found myself thinking about healthcare.

But what's wrong with Sally?

We all know a Sally, maybe she's you?

She's in her late 40s. Her weight is creeping up. Her blood pressure is elevated. Her blood sugar is drifting into diabetic territory. She's tired. She gets headaches. She gets snappy. Perimenopause is blamed.

She visits her GP, who identifies hypertension, increasing insulin resistance, hormonal changes, and excess weight. These are recognised conditions with established treatment pathways. Medications are prescribed, risks are managed, and referrals are made.

None of this is wrong, and Sally insists she's fine. She's coping. Work is busy but manageable. The kids are good. The mortgage is under control. She's just tired, that's all.

But what if Sally has been operating in survival mode for years?

What if she's eating lunch at her desk -if at all? Sleeping poorly, avoiding exercise because she's already exhausted, reaching for caffeine to get through the afternoon, and alcohol to take the edge off at night?

What if she's carrying the invisible load of ageing parents, teenage children, workplace pressures, and a calendar that has no white space left?

What if her body isn't failing at all? What if it's doing exactly what bodies do when they're asked to adapt to ongoing demands?

The elevated blood pressure, increasing weight, disrupted blood sugar, fatigue, and headaches are not isolated problems. They are clues. Signals. The dashboard lights are now fully illuminated because the engine has been under strain for a very long time.

A naturopath's role is to become curious about those signals—to look beyond the diagnosis and ask what may have driven the body to adapt in this way.

Not just what condition Sally has. But what story is her body trying to tell?

Because sometimes the most important question isn't "How do we manage these numbers?" It's "How did we get here in the first place?"

Looking back, Sally's bus company had spent years focusing on keeping services running despite dwindling resources. Every solution was aimed at managing the consequences rather than addressing the cause. For Sally, the missing buses represent her resources: sleep, nourishment, recovery, movement, connection, joy, resilience, and capacity—the things that allow the system to function well in the first place.

And perhaps the most important question of all isn't:

"What's wrong with me?"

It's:

"What am I carrying that my body is having to adapt to?"

Because symptoms are rarely random, they're clues, an invitation to look deeper, become curious, and understand the story that brought us here.

 Book a naturopathic consultation and let's get curious together.