I NEARLY died

I’ve really almost died 3 times in my life, yes the magical sequence of 3.  Hopefully its strike 3 and you are not out, so far so good.  I always say I don’t really get sick but when I do, I go to hospital and this year I am being a rebel, I have no medical aid!! Yes, when the going gets tough, you have to cancel the medical aid.  Should I get very sick, I see it as my time to move on into my angelic life due to the fact that I will have to go to a government hospital and somehow people rarely walk out of there alive.

On April 6^th, 2008, I was involved in a car accident, exactly one year after my sisters accident.  You can imagine my parents weren’t thrilled when they received the news, I was half dead and had my mother lecturing my on the other side of the phone, gotta love moms!! Long story short, a gentleman fell asleep around a bend on the highway and crashed into the section in the fast line, the barrier separating the two highways.  Then next a Chinese lady rammed into the before mentioned gentleman’s car and they all got out and left their vehicles with no hazard lights on.  It was about 2am in the morning and I came driving 120 which is the speed limit and slammed into the two cars.  Needles to say, I didn’t feel the impact, all I can remember was the paramedic at my window shouting “I think she’s dead”.  I quickly sat up and remember the blood streaming out of my nose, it felt like arm water was running down my face.  Trying to get his attention I shout “I am alive”.  They cut me out with the jaws of live and I was taken to Sunninghill Hospital.  I miraculously did not break a single bone in my body, I had my safety belt imprinted on my body with the bruises and thank goodness I wore a safety belt or I would have been dead.  I tore the ligaments or whatever you call it in my neck and a piece of glass cut through my upper left arm but I survived on painkillers and soldiered on.

January 29^th, 2013, I started developing a bad headache at work and though it was just a migraine. I arrived home and felt like I fell off my chair and cracked my skull but alas that was not the case.  I scooped up my 5 month old baby and placed her on the floor with me and had the 2 year old runup and down to keep us entertained and minimize any additional activities from my side.  The next morning I could literally hear the birds chirping outside and my hearing felt like I developed supersonic hearing overnight, it was definitely not from  turning into a Supermom superhero, that would have been fun.  Rush to hospital by a family member, I was admitted for DEPRESSION!!! Really, they thought I overdosed or something.  Very annoyed and in pain they wheeled me into a ward with chatty Cathy and her sidekick, then and there I requested to be moved.  Finally a different doctor came to see me, he looked at me and immediately said it wasn’t depression – NO WAYS – I could’ve self-diagnosed there.  Off I went for CT scans and MRI scans, I started vomiting mid MRI scan, used the hospital dustbin, not my greatest moment.  They wheeled me back and gave me pain meds, now we wait.  I was trying to sleep and suddenly the doctor comes waltzing in with all his nurses, there is a tray with needles, “doctor its 12 o’clock in the morning” I said to him, “yes I know but its bothering me and I think you are very sick” he tells me.  A lumber puncture he said, it will be painful he said, I didn’t feel a thing.  An hour later and masked me arrived at my bed taking me to isolation, I had Severe Viral Meningitis.  They pushed me into my private room, doped me up on meds and left.  I cant remember the 2 weeks that followed, I was kept under sedation and remember one time eating with my plate next to my face because I couldn’t lift my head.  I managed to recover after being in the hospital for a month and having lost 25% hearing in my right ear and 1 di-optical of sight in both eyes from the damage done by the virus. 

I think it was January 11^th, 2014, I casually strolled into a very upmarket grocer and bought an organic ruby grape juice.  I was dieting and felt like that was the best choice for the moment.  What I didn’t realise is that I have never eaten or drank for that matter any sort of RUBY grapefruit in my life.  As I walked back from the shop I started becoming itchy all over, first just slightly and then it started to really itch, I was scratching so bad the blood marks were on my body, then my tongue started tingling and at about that time I decided to make my way to the hospital.  As I arrived at the robots about 1km from the hospital, my airway closed – great – I raced to the entrance of the hospital, took my baby out the car and ran to emergency.  I handed my child over to the first available nurse and collapsed. When I came to I was surrounded by about 10 personnel and a doctor telling me ever so panicky “you are not going to die today”.  “Yeah right buddy, I am going to die today” I thought to myself.  I think I received 2 adrenaline shots and some other stuff, oxygen and and and.  They managed to save me, wheeled me off to the ward and kept me for observation.  I have a severe allergic reaction – anaphylactic shock – I will also now never be able to donate blood again due to the antibodies being in my blood.  It could kill someone.  To cut a long story short, after a weeks stay, swelling up like a balloon due to being allergic to cortisone as well, a scope up both top and bottom orifices, they sent me home with a clean bill of health.

So with all “said” I should have probably died on all accounts but somehow I am still here, the purpose of my being here, still unknown.  Yet I still suffer through everyday life and don’t have it easy by any means, I still carry on. I keep hoping for a silver lining, a light at the end of the tunnel, my breakthrough moment.

I keep on keeping on.