formula to count number of frequencies word appears

[Mr Marvin]

im looking to create excel spreahsheet which would count number of days off within a month.

i am using the counta formula to add the total number but i am looking to see if it is possible to have the number of spells e.g. if they had 5 days off at the start and then 5 days off at the end, the total number of days be 10 but there be 2 instances of absences.

can this be done at all.

tia

 

[Jeffrey Mahoney]

Can you please provide an example of your dataset.

 

[Mr Marvin]

Hi Jeffrey, apologies for the slow response, so from the screen shot below you can see that there are in total 7 sick records over 2 instances of sick in the column. im wondering whether there is a function or method that will provide the number of intances (in this example 2). TIA