The Goog Nooz Is...

Could this life thing hurry up and wrap it up already. I've obviously overstayed my welcome, I get it.  At some point a semblance of normalcy has to rear its head. I have to wake up and endure traffic, office banter, politics and loadshedding like everyone else. I'd rather enjoy those things, than endure being in a body that relays its hatred towards me every 2 weeks. Essentially deeming me a hermitress. Where was the need for an endometriosis diagnosis? Why am I now defending myself against low blood sugar? Will I ever be worthy of having the right amount of oxygen in my bloodstream? Should my heart be labelled as failed when it was doing its best to help the lungs. Excuse me, sir... ma'am Life, what can I do to free myself from your maze? In this damp cave that you've placed me in, is there a crossroads where I can choose to go to the left or the right? I'll take full responsibility of the outcome, but the journey and the sights and sounds throughout it are yours ...

1. Get up. Take a shower, and show up wholeheartedly.  That was how I planned to start the first day of work. My employer has been kind enough when it comes to my regular absence due to lung health issues. I was going to go the extra 5 miles, in appreciation. They wouldn't see or feel my extra exertion, but I was determined to prove my appreciation. When the day came, I indeed took a shower and showed up. Yes, I was working from home, but I felt the need to go through the same motions the other colleagues who go to the office went through. Silent solidarity.  I have no clue why I do such things. Sometimes I laugh at myself and remind myself that no one sees my private theatrical actions.  They make me happy, the said dramatic actions. I feel useful like I'm earning my place in the world. Doing my bit.  Onwards. 

   1.   “What’s actually wrong with you?” It takes time and a measure of courage for a person to ask this. How do I know? If the conversation is in person, the pitch of the voice goes higher, and the volume lowers. I almost want to respond with, “Why are we whispering, Barbie?” How rude that would be!   Most people ask because they genuinely care and want to know how they can help, even if it turns out that they can’t do anything at all. Some people are just curious, and that’s okay too. We’re hardwired to want to know about each other. A few mongers simply want to spread “the news” to any and everyone who will validate their craving for being labelled “the one who knows.” We all have that aunt/cousin/colleague. Then there’s that one cousin of mine, bless her soul, who reminds me every time I fall sick that it’s because of the COVID vaccine. She’s relentless. She once said, and I kid you not, “Gugs, you’ve been fat your whole life. So why are you ...

 1. Comicon Africa! I've wanted to take my boy there, but I was previously unable to. For 2023 I bought our tickets the day they were made available. We're over the whole cosplay thing, but we were sure gonna go nuts on merch. Solid.  2. Today is 23 September 2023. Day 2. Sold out! Everyone is there, including my son! I'm beaming with joy.  It took several phone calls to make sure he gets a lift there, comes rain or shine. I was truly set to leave this hospital yesterday. I had my pen out, ready to sign discharge papers. But my lungs are making me pay for something. One day I'll find out.  I was fully prepared to wake up this morning (23 September) and drive my boy to Comicon and drop him off. Sleep. Then pick him up. It was going to be my thing for him.  The little man held down our fort for 9 whole days, on his own, with our trusty pitbull. Things didn't work out in the dramatic mind-theatre way we tend to dream up. 

The 10 Things I Hated About Being At Netcare Olivedale 1. Loss of control of my schedule. I'm not a planner, but I'm a controller and not being in charge of exactly what time I'm seeing a person sends me into a spiral. Doctors don't make appointments at the hospital. They come as they come. 2. Multiple people having access to my body, all at once. I have lived with just my son for 12 years. We don't touch people. We just exist. Being pricked, probed, pushed, turned, stretched... touched, was unnerving and invasive. 3. Having to be a brat about getting a window-side bed, because my anxiety and claustrophobia are a reality. Plus, I can't sleep with closed windows. 4. The lower standard of custard from 2021/21. This was a travesty. That is the last thing you eat every night. It tasted like heartbreak and looked motherless. Depressing. Netcare needs to hold EMPACT to a higher standard. There's a lot of wastage with inedible vegetables. In a country like ours, t...

 CAPES & SPANDEX  🦸 1. "Ma'am, what would you like me to do?"  "Uhm... let me go home. Why do you ask as if there's a different option, doc?"  That was the slippery start of the conversation for my discharge from my two-week holiday in hospital. Of course, taking the holiday was not me, but my lungs. Having a fancy time being dysfunctional, while the rest of my body sort of had to sit around and beg for oxygen. The doctor, a substitute for my primary pulmonologist, seemed uneasy about letting me go home. Sounds like a 'him' problem. I went home.  With the removal of the J-loop from my hand, I was bumped off the infinite hospital loop. Joy! A J-loop is an intravenous adapter that allows pretty much anyone to inject chemicals directly into your bloodstream, thereby bypassing the mouth, throat, and stomach. Pesky organs that delay the dispensation of vital medication!  A J-loop is also a stray dog, umgodoyi, that reminds you that you're not in ...

FINAL CHAPTER 1. When your life is taken away from your hands, and put in another's control, your mind trips. What is this?  Who are they and why do they get to tell me what I can and cannot do right now?  Why am I attached to cables? Then tears. Why me?  The most egotistical of all the stages of grief.  Denial. It can't be me. It can't be me again. My doctor is spectacular! SK! Certified COVID warrior who brought the damned from the brink. Brought himself from the brink. A physician who healed himself. The city's most respected pulmonologist. He is fixing me. So why am I here?  Anger! I told so-and-so to not cough in my direction. I really didn't want to travel for work because of the current COVID sub-variant. Why do people show up at work with infections? Look at this now! 2. More denial and acceptance. Oh, it's just pneumonia. No biggie for my lung master physician.  But lungs exist in different bodies, that are in different stages of deterioration, as ...

1. Seven days! Seven days in a high-care unit and the voices have started to get louder and more brazen.  "You're dying faster " "You left your son alone at home. Irresponsible mother!" "What did you think was gonna happen?" "You work too hard for your abilities!"  There's a distilled water bottle bubbling soothingly above my head. This keeps the oxygen supply from drying up my nose. It's sounding less like a pond and more like a damning cauldron.  2.   The initial pneumonia infection that brought me here has since been zapped by various antibiotics. What remains are the effects. Lungs are balloons, but that doesn't mean they ought to stay inflated. But not mine, nah ah. Mine got carried away and now their inflated all the way up, making it hard to bring in some new air to, you know, continue breathing.  3. A scan, an x-ray, antidepressants and a cocktail of life-keeper pills later, we see the way.  I need to stay indoors.  Indoo...

Sometime in July 2023 What has been happening? Hypoxemia. That's a fancy way of saying "Oxygen don't like your body, ma'am. °°° What caused it in my case? 1. Not using my CPAP machine every night because Eskom wants to see us dead. This machine helps with sleep apnea - every now and then I stop breathing at night, presumably to admire myself in my sleep.  2. I have diastolic dysfunction - fancy way of saying a certain part of my heart muscle doesn't ever relax (pretty much like my personality. IYKYK) 3. Anemia (I'm treating this by consuming iron every day. If you stand too close to me, you can smell the iron ore. Don't tell the US government. They will mine me.) 4. Pulmonary hypertension (I'm also taking pills for this. But we found that they have lost strength, so doc increased the dose to Final Boss Level.) °°° What has been happening to my body (symptoms) 1. Lower lip has been darker (I just need to put on lip gloss, and it looks like I have a new l...