The Rainbow Bridge

 

"The test results have come back and I'm afraid your baby has leukemia..." the voice on the other end of the phone said.

"What? No, that's not possible...I mean...what happens now? How do we treat it? "

"Well, we can go ahead with tooth extractions and steroid treatment and see how she does or we should start thinking about...other options"

"But she's only 4 years old!"

"I know, it's very tragic"

Silence spun out between us. He seemed comfortable enough, waiting for the shock to settle in my mind, probably from years of experience delivering bad news. After a long enough pause, he decided I was probably not going to say anything.

"Take a few days, discuss this with her dad and call me so we can start a plan forward."

Turned out leukemia in cats is not so much cancer as it is a virus but despite this differentiation; it is also just as, if not more, deadly. And a painful death from what I could tell from my internet search.

"It's not fair!" I sobbed to my husband that evening, trying not to scare the human children. They haven't seen me cry a lot. Sarcastic, bitchy, exhausted and near-catatonic but never crying.

"She has had such a shitty life, just as she finds a new loving home suddenly they want to immigrate or their kid gets allergic or the dog wants to eat her. We are her 5th home and she was just starting to trust us and realise she can chill now!"

Poor Tommie just stroked my hair gently as I wet his t-shirt with hot tears.

"I don't know what to do..." I finally admitted weakly.

"I know" he says. Notice how he opted out of making the decision? 

Clever man. He knows I will follow my own way whatever choice he makes.

Poor Chewy was on the couch, snuggled in one of my jerseys, looking for all the world happy as a clam but I knew her well enough to know that her mouth was killing her. The squint of her eyes, the stillness of her head and the deep purr coming from her chest the most obvious clues to her pain.

As is the custom of my people; I threw myself into internet searches for cures and remedies,asking for advice on Facebook groups for cat lovers and animal parents all over the globe but to no avail, none of the answers had the ring of truth to it that I was looking for.

Late at night I would snuggle up with her in front of the tv, eating bowl after bowl of ice cream and rewatching Vampire Diaries.

"What do you want, baby?" I would whisper into her little ear but she would just do the slow blink at me.

You know exactly what to do, that blink seemed to say.

"I'm not ready..."

She nodded as if she understood and went back to sleep.

That winter took forever to pass. I upgraded my credit card and took Chewy for full tooth extractions under general anaesthesia followed by monthly cortisone injections which seemed to make a big difference in her quality of life but it was borrowed time, I knew.

I also knew that this extension of her life was more for me than for her, which kind of made it selfish, right? I also knew myself well enough to know that there was no avoiding it. 

Bitter-einder. 

That's the term for someone like me. 

Perhaps you are one of us too.

I woke up one morning to the powerful stench of cat urine all around me. I sat up and felt the wetness on my pillow where Chewy was still fast asleep.

She had wet herself without even waking up.

I felt as if a heavy stone had been dropped into my stomach.

Kidneys taking strain... could be the cortisone or the leukemia. Can't go without either.

It's go time.

Tommie went with me. He always does when we have to euthanize one of my pets. I say "my pets" that way because they always seem to find me. It's not like I go out looking for dogs or cats or  ducks or praying mantises. They simply find their way to me and then claim me like a familiar to a witch. Tommie's quiet presence

is invaluable to me as I usually cry like a broken drain pipe all the way there and even worse on the way back, so driving is fraught with danger. Also, he would pay for the procedure which is lovely. Hey, I'm always broke...sure it's my own damn fault but still...

Chewy has never been a big fan of the vet but that day she seemed resigned to her fate.

I couldn't help but wonder if maybe she knew that she was going to die.

As the vet prepared the small innocent looking syringe, I said to Chewy: "Oom Casper is going to be waiting for you, okay baby, you haven't met him yet but he will take wonderful care of you. And you'll probably meet Zorro and Sushi and oupa Corrie there as well."

"You know, the older one gets the longer that list gets as well" the vet said with a sad smile and my heart gave a painful throb as his words sunk in.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes..no...well yes please help her."

I bent over and whispered into her ear: "I am so sorry, sweetie, I love you so much. I am so sorry"

Tommie was also crying and stroking her ribs. 

I bet 6 of the 7 years veterinarians have to study is about getting comfortable with people crying openly and unapologetically in your presence.

The needle slipped in painlessly and her chest stopped moving.

After a brief listen to her heart the vet informed us that Chewy had crossed over the rainbow bridge.

Leaving her sad little body alone on the cold slab felt all kinds of wrong but I had looked into her eyes and I knew she was no longer in the room with us.

Oom Casper has come for her and she was probably snacking on wild-caught salmon and geelvet biltong by now, knowing him.

I wish we had a Dr Kevorkian for our animals that could somehow build a contraption that can help them out but only after they themselves had pushed a button. Of course they would need a deeper understanding of death and dying...and an opposable thumb of course, but you know what I mean.

"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard" - Winnie the Pooh

Boobs are Big, y'all. Even small ones.

When I was about 13, my best friend suddenly developed a chest. It was astounding how it changed everything she wore and everyone she encountered. It gave her prepubescent body immediate grace and elegance. Her tank tops turned from childish to stylish as they emphasised her narrow waist, sweeping down from the soft curve where the fabric stretched smooth across her breasts.

Bell bottoms looked intensely gorgeous because of the exaggerated hourglass figure it painted. Even better when paired with Doc Martins, which ere very in at the time, not just niche like now. Seriously, everyone had at least one pair. Or a fake pair, like me.

Her Alien (take me to your dealer) holographic necklace nestled contentedly in the gentle nook of her bossom.

Boys went ballistic. 

This was in the 8th grade at the art school she and I went to. Our first year in High school. The problem there was that in order to fit in; you had to either be extremely weird (bonus points for actually having any discernable talent whatsoever) or have boobs. Preferably both.

Neither my friend, let's call her Kelly, nor I were really weird enough. Kelly wasn't weird at all. She was fun, outgoing and most importantly, had boobs.

Me on the other hand kind of possibly resembled Igor lurking behind the brilliant Dr Frankenstein (if Frankenstein had sleek glossy hair, cute mini skirts and fresh new C cups).

I was facing a dilemma. I had been a little weird all my life (I am still not sure why exactly but I do know that people often experience me as being weird because they tell me).

Being a little weird and not good at sports meant not really fitting in anywhere at school. Being under-weird at the art school didn't work either. And the most tragic fact of all; I had no boobage to speak of at all.

Wherever Kelly went boys fell all over themselves and each other, opening doors, trying to start conversations and cracking jokes or showing off in some or other way.

Then poor little ugly step sister would appear and I could swear they fell back trying to hide their horror and pity.

I couldn't wear a tank top because I was unfortunately cursed with severe acne that affected not only my face but also my shoulders, back and decolletage. And I'm not talking about cute little Oxy-10 pimples with sweet little white tips. I mean, open burn-wound style carbuncles, oozing and glistening all over the place.

So I wore t-shirts. My alien holographic necklace just flopped around my neck wherever I went.

My bellbottoms made me look a bit like a piece of clay that used to be a ball but then gravity made it into a stocky pear-shaped blob. And to top it all off, I somehow still had a fringe, even though my blonde curls absolutely could not pull this look off. I believe I resembled a thatched lapa, with one end of the roof shorter so people can come and go in as they please.

On top of that, my mouth felt dry all the time which made speaking challenging and I was a nervous wreck about having bad breath.

Boys reacted...unfavorably towards me. Apart from the one I really actually lusted after with my whole quasimodo heart. He was nice. I still honestly have no idea why. Maybe pity. He once asked me about my horse riding lessons and said we should go riding together sometime. Did I dream this? Why would you say that to someone if it's not a come-on? 

Nervous psychobabble? 

I probably dreamed it.

Anyhoo, I felt like if only I could have boobs, nobody would notice my hair, breath, acne, the way my tongue stuck to my palate when I spoke or my devastating lack of social wit and aplomb.

But they did not come.

At a party one night I struck up a conversation with a very cute guy (it was dark and someone must have given me some booze because how else could I manage this superhuman feat?). His name was Graham. He was older and english and had black hair and blue eyes and he was the dj at the party so much cred and coolness right there. 

He planted a very clumsy, slobbery kiss on my mouth and pawed around my chest area a bit like someone looking for a light switch in the dark but after not finding anything there, gave up and went back to smoking without inhaling with all the other kids.

Boobs are big, y'all. Even small ones.

Eventually both Kelly and I returned to my former school where we were welcomed by our old friends with open arms.

Her by a bunch of insanely attractive, highly athletic, super cool kids and me by my motley crew of outcasts as we affectionately named ourselves.

Our group consisted of the following personality types;

The goth/wiccan/witch

The chemistry prodigy 

The gay guy

The secret gay guy(s)

The guy who called himself Vlad and told everyone that he is a "psychic vampire" (he was sexy so we let him in and also, we let anyone and everyone in if they wanted in)

The Pliggie

The über nerd

The Ginger (this was before they were hot)

The German

And me.

Our core group started with just us four girls, we called ourselves Aden because our initials spelled it. I suppose we could have been Dean just as well but Supernatural had not happened back then or it would have been a serious contender.

The three of them had already been blessed with proud, full breasts, each bigger and rounder and more lovely than the next. I was crushed. 

Luckily by then I had stumbled upon a pill that magically erases any and all traces of acne from your body and only destroys your liver a little bit. At this point in my life I had literally no idea that I would one day become a proudly functional alcoholic and would need my liver in top form in order to continue successfully but I digress.

So that cleared up the problem of the horrible debilitating zits.

I had grown out my fringe and gotten a hair straightener and had nice long swishy blonde hair.

I even managed to get a boyfriend. He was forever playing with my hair (probably because I didn't have boobs for him to play with) and today he is a very successful hairdresser. Of course I take a lot of the credit for that. Incidentally, I know what you're thinking and surprisingly no he's not gay. At least it sure didn't seem that way back then and doesn't now either. 

But who is to say how human sexuality really works, I sure have seen some lines being rubbed out and pencilled back in and then rubbed out again in my few years on this planet.

That's it; we're all just looking for our own spot to scribble away at the white board of human psyche and sexual orientation. 

Once we were 16, I still pretty much looked like a mosquito had a drink on one side of my chest, alighted, reconsidered his life choices and then landed for one more quick meal on the other side before being on his way.

This was...this was just...fucking...bullshit! 

Sure sure, beauty comes from within, you shouldn't change yourself for a man, there's nothing wrong with you, the media is painting false expectations blah blah blah. 

Yeah easy for you to say with your "boklammer" tieties!

Where are my boklammers? Did God forget to give me a dose? Did my prayer for big boobs and a small nose get garbled and now I have a huge shnoz and zero boobs?

I never ever slept on my stomach again because what if I had started developing breasts and then slept them into pancakes again?

But, as is the custom, life went on and just got crazier and crazier. First matric. Then gap year, then college, then marriage, then addiction, then divorce and finally I was standing still and wondering what the hell had just happened to me. Who am I?

Well I had no freakin idea but I did know one thing; I have always wanted boobs and by golly I was going to get them for my damn self.

On account of this post already being too long, I will leave to your imagination the kind of begging, stealing and borrowing I had to do to finance this whim.

Waking up from the surgery, my first thought was that this is a practical joke. The sheer agony that was radiating from my upper body could not possibly be real or allowed to exist in a rational world.

I had once heard a woman describe this pain in a very silly, over exaggerated way which I now realised was more like an objective scientific case study description.

She said that she felt like a ten ton truck, filled with burning coal, wheels full of long nails, sticking out of them like Hellraiser's head, had run over her torso, backed up and run over her again. Everything was pulverised and kneaded into a semi-solid blubbering mess and underneath it all, a small bubble of acid ate away deeper and deeper and deeper, stopping just centimeters from her heart, lungs and other vital organs, causing heart rate and breathing to go erratic and at times stop dead.

I croaked out a sound of disbelief and objection but nobody heard me except my dearest mother who immediately barked at the (male) nurse to give me large quantities of pain drugs or she'll clobber him over the head with her purse.

He obediently went to fetch the pethidine injection (people listen when my mother goes into hulk smash mode) but when the time came to angle me slightly onto my side in order to gain access to the muscle in my upper bum where the drugs go, I could not move a millimeter without a high pitched screech fountaining up out of my mouth, ricocheting around the hospital and upsetting everyone.

Eventually he did manage and even though the pain didn't completely dissapear, it mercifully took a walk further out into the dessert and sat down on a rock, it's chin propped in its hand, waiting for the meds to wear off so it could come yell into my face again. I could see it sitting there, counting the minutes, knowing these shots can only be given every 6 hours but he is free to come torment me again after just 3.

That night I had to go wee wee and I asked the matron on duty how it works, is there a catheter or a bed pan or...

"You have to get up and go to the bathroom" she said angrily. Oh gosh she was so angry. Why? What happened to you?

"Come again?"

"Yes, it's good for you to walk."

"But I can't blink my eyes without passing out a little. How can I walk? Or sit up even?"

"It's not that bad" she said unsympathetically.

I didn't think she had ever had a boob job, peering at her perfectly ironed uniform.

"Oh. Well, that's okay then, I don't mind sleeping in a wet bed. Thanks anyway"

She begrudgingly brought a bed pan when she saw that I was serious and getting ready to wet the bed with gusto but I had a fleeting thought that she might hit me over the head with it, *thunk!* and ironically; I would have welcomed it because Pain was back, screaming insults at me, drill-sargeant style, splittle flying onto my cheeks.

But she ended up shoving it at me and hissing: "This is wrong!" And then violently helped me slide the thing under me in order to pee a generous amount into it and the rest onto the bed. Hey, you win some you lose some.

After 3 days I could walk and talk and smile again but no driving or carrying watermelons.

They were still sore to the point of I couldn't look at them without it hurting.

Even in the shower, I would dodge those one or two strong little streams between all the nice mellow streams, as much as possible.

After a week I drove to the shops and bought and carried a watermelon.

Life was good, friends, life was good.

Once the surgical drains came out, I could start wearing normal bras and cute clothes and things again and guess what?

None of my old clothes fit me.

Because.

I.

Had.

BOOBS!

Gosh, they were the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Only years afterwards I would see two equally beautiful things and those would be the faces of my children when they are asleep.

I went to the shops and bought 20 million sun dresses. The sundress is a weird and wonderful thing. Dresses in general, really. Remember Susan Boyle's dress in her first audition? It was beautiful! But did you notice it at all? No. Why? Boobs, baby. 

Boobs.

But I suppose in her case also possibly a cinched waist and a different hairstyle. And better shoes. And also a different dress.

Anyway, oh my word; that first little dress I let flutter over my shoulders snagged in a way I had never experienced before. Previously I just had to get it over my head and the rest would be history, it would fall over my shoulders right down to my hips and maybe catch there slightly so I would have to give it a tug at the back just to cover my bum but this time, it got stuck around my collar bone.

What a privilege that was. How awed and grateful I felt staring at myself in the dressing room mirror with a dress around my neck like a court jester.

I tugged it over my new breasts and smoothed it over my hips and there stood someone else. A girl with an hour glass figure. A woman.

My shoulders automatically went back, my neck straightened and I smiled.

This was the day it all changed. 

I have always felt like there was a palpable difference in how people treated me depending on my hair colour.

Blonde: yeah, not too bad but maybe slightly patronising like everything I say needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Men especially could be a little "ja. Okay, pop. Whatever you say". Goths, however, didn't seem to mind it.

Black: made most people nervous, except for the goth crowd that felt right at home with black-haired girls.

Brown: people listened and replied in what seemed like an everyday, grown-up fashion, if ever so slightly bored and nasal.

Red: everyone asks you if you're a natural red head (is that code for the curtains/rug debate?). Goths also seem to really like red hair.

Goths might be a bit slutty.

Since having what I always thought was a typical "normal" female figure, people have been treating me differently. They'd notice me faster, they'd be more eager to help me and they'd listen more attentively to what I have to say. I don't believe it's directly linked to the boobs but rather to the massive confidence boost they have given me.

And sure, the way a dress drapes the figure 8 might have something to do with it.

Of course, now I have spent pages and pages waxing lyrical about boob jobs and not so much breastfeeding.

Well let me tell you. The pain I described earlier, waking up from anesthesia after having breast augmentation surgery very closely resembles the pain I felt when I started breastfeeding my first born.

Oh boy and she was thirsty. She was thirstier than my friends and I were after student's night at Drop Zone. And oh boy, she did not hold back. When those little lips clapped around my nipple I felt like someone had slammed a live shark attached to a sledge-hammer into me.

The only reason I kept doing it was because the pain was marginally less than the absolute torture of listening to her crying all day and all night into eternity until Tommie hung himself from the baby gate, all the cats threw themselves into the open mouths of neighbourhood alsatians and my brain cut its own wrists, bled out and I died.

She would fall asleep at the breast but stay latched like a rock oyster. Then she would wake up hungry again and oh how convenient, the buffet is open and I already dished! Then she'd poop herself and cry hysterically while gumming my poor abused breast and then dig her tiny newborn nails into the other breast, in order to better communicate her discontent. 

This is an occurrence called "twiddling", and friends, this act nearly drove me sailing sideways over the edge.

You have to understand that hormones were raging through my body. Everything irritated and exhausted and overwhelmed me and to top it all off, this act of having my nipple pinched which might have been pleasurable in a previous life, was now akin to chinese water torture.

Plus, after the shock and horror of the pain of the baby latching has subsided and I have uncurled my toes, a feeling of deep sadness, hunger and thirst like a dying person in the desert must experience, would wash over me.

I had to have a massive bottle of water in each room of the house and scattered throughout the garden. These bottles had to be easy to open with one hand, also, because I perpetually had a baby locked onto me and had to hold her there with my one arm, much like a rugby ball, while brushing my teeth, eating, cooking, cleaning, wiping my ass and whatever else I wanted to do with my remaining arm.

This is part of the reason why I lost so much weight after having a second child. I had no more arms left to feed myself with. Turns out having kids can be a highly effective diet but I wouldn't recommend it. The keto diet, now theres a good one that doesn't make you wish for oblivion every five minutes.

Either way. Turns out you don't need boobs to be able to breastfeed. I mean obviously there has to be some breast tissue in there but those little rose buds, perched in front of my gorgeous prosthetic boobs were scarcely visible to the naked eye and yet they somehow managed to produce gallons of milk.

My babies drank and drank and drank and picked up weight and made tons of wet and dirty nappies (ironically this is very very good news because it means you're doing good at the breastfeeding thing and have enough milkies, yay great success!)

Even though I vowed never ever to co-sleep with my babies for fear of suffocating them by accident, I ended up yanking Dita (my first born) into bed with us after just 5 days of life for fear of suffocating her deliberately if I didn't get any sleep.

This brought us into the era of the musical beds. Tommie and I would fall asleep in our bed initially and Dita in her pram next to us, only to awaken in completely different and separate beds in the morning.

Here's why; 5 minutes after reaching a deep sleep, I would wake up with a start at the sound of a train roaring through the room. My body would go ice cold as massive amounts of adrenaline flooded my system, getting ready to fight or flee.

After realising that the roaring train was in fact my 2,8kg daughter, I would scuttle around trying to remember what made babies cry. Oh yes, I had a list. Find the phone, quickly quickly, here it is. Okay the list of things to check when baby cries:

1.) Wet/dirty nappy

2.) Hungry/thirsty

3.) Lonely

This list is by no means exhaustive and even though this seems extremely obvious to even animals, probably, when you wake up like that, not knowing what time of day it is, what day of the week it is and what species of pond scum you are, even a three bullet list is better than nothing.

I would scurry to the bathroom with the tiny roaring train and switch on the light and quickly close the door as not to bother Tommie, poor baby, and then proceed to struggle with the tiny little diaper, the baby screaming I AM LEGION into my face.

The diaper which then turned out to be completely dry and sparklingly clean.

"What. The fuck. Are you crying about, tiny bruh?"

I would offer her the boob. She would twist away from it like it's a vile mound of manure I am trying to push her face into and continue screaming baby-obsenities into the night.

I would sush and sway her and hop her up and down, turn her sideways, other sideways and even upside down and still nothing would help.

I eventually had a routine of walking around and around the diningroom table with her slumped over my shoulder, patting her little back and chanting like a native american. 

"HiHowAreYou, HiHowAreYou, HiHowAreYouoooooooo"

Every time I passed the wall clock, half a minute would have passed.

These were the days and nights of our lives. Me and Dita. Dita and me. Were we even apart ever? Was she actually just an extension of my breasts and arms and shoulders and soul?

I ended up breastfeeding her until she was 2 years old. Then I weaned her but two weeks after that lock-down happened and I caved. Listen, even 5 minutes of peace was worth it. I was 30 weeks pregnant with Danté and constantly exhausted and having the option of clapping Dita to my breast mid-tantrum worked wonders and possibly saved her tiny life during that time. 

2 weeks before Danté was born I weaned Dita off again. She took it well. A little sad, slightly dejected but generally philosophical about the whole thing. 

When Dantétjie came and latched on for the first time, it felt only like perhaps a tiny biting insect, attached to a lily, was lightly flicked at me. I suppose my breasts had gotten baby-fit by then.

Oh my word and then Danté was there. In all her glory and wrath. She was a much happier, calmer baby at first, sure, but once she woke up to the fact that this life is cold, unforgiving and mostly meaningless, she expressed her feelings of despondency whole heartedly and without hesitation or censorship. 

"Why am I here? What do I want? Give me whatever I want and quickly while you're at it. What's that you're saying? Wa bly jy, jy bly stil!" Is what it amounted to.

She breastfed 27 hours out of the 24 hour day. Three hours of which she spent chewing her food. At night I co-slept with her in a separate bed and room by then, musical beds had gotten exhausting and I had just given up and moved out of my nice, big, warm marital bed. Where my husband just occasionally copped a feel during the night, Danté tended to completely annex both my breasts with her teeth and nails and my head and limbs just kind of lolled around the bed, feeling bored and useless in comparison. I was a giant rack, living for the satiation of my feral second child.

Finally around the time Danté was 2,5 my gallbladder decided to fuck out on me, just for the fun of it. My body had started throwing me interesting little action stunts ever since Danté's cochlear implant disasters had dissipated and I was having withdrawals from adrenaline and mania.

Thanks body!

Anyway, my hair was back to blonde so the doctors thought I was probably just having some heart burn, garnished with your average garden variety female hysteria (subtype neglected mother C), which caused me to be in hospital for 5 days before they finally listened to me and tested my gallbladder, found it to be fucked and yanked it out.

Ergo; Danté was unwittingly and unceremoniously weaned at the start of December 2022. She was beyond angry, she raged like the sea during spring tide, dashing herself against things in the house and breaking her own nose against the floor, once.

 I swear she did it to herself, it wasn't us!

She raged and raged and lamented and roared for months. I cried and cried and cried and Tommie forbade and admonished and threatened and eventually shit calmed down and once again I found myself washed out on a desert beach in the middle of nowhere. Tiny pieces of broken seashell stuck in my hair.

Where the hell was I?

Where had I been going?

How had I gotten here?

Which species of pond scum was I?

And most importantly; what had happened to my boobs?

When I looked down at myself, I could clearly see my silicone prosthesis still perfectly in place, securely lodged behind the chest muscle. The front bit, however, the natural breast that's been taking all the shots, the tiny hands and teeth and head butts, those were hanging like used condoms from me.

Poor things.

"Oh, I had mine redone after stopping my breastfeeding journey and it only cost about R100k and that was one of the more affordable places" one of my patients told me.

Gosh R100k...how will I ever get Tommie to give me R100k? He told me to quit breastfeeding after the first month...I could try a powerpoint presentation of how much money we had saved in formula and are going to save in antibiotics, orthodontics and psychiatric medications because breastmilk is supposed to breed happy, healthy, stable children with straight teeth...

Oh but wait! Did I mention that breastfeeding makes you as thin as a reed if you have insatiable babies?

I was unfortunately so depressed at the time that I didn't exactly don my bikini and stilettos and go dancing on beaches to celebrate my amazing new body, so it was kind of lost on me, but I suddenly realised how wonderful it was when it stopped happening and started reversing itself.

Not only did I start gaining weight rapidly but I also fell into despair and cried hysterically over the phone with my therapist.

"I want to run into the hills and live like a witch and never see or speak to anyone ever again!" I wailed at her dramatically. 

"That would be the feel-good oxytocin and prolactin levels dropping in your blood stream, making you depressed..er" she responded.

Oh. Well that's just awesome. What a wonderful world.

Next thing I knew my boobs looked good again. But I couldn't find them in all my belly, hips and jowls. 

Oh hell no. No no no no no.

What to do, what to do...diet?

Ugh. 

And exercise? 

Ugh.

Boobjob, tummy tuck, face-and-butt lift, lipo suction combo?

Yes please.

Gofundme?

Backabuddy?

Prostitution?

Watch this space...sigh...

This is 40

"There's nothing wrong with you, stop imagining things and learn to live with the pain that's not really there" said the doctor (or something in that line).

"I still want an mri, please" said me.

"That's too expensive but fine I'll let you have that one. But then you're done. And we're doing a colonoscopy and gastroscopy too" said he.

"But I had those six months ago!"

"Fine we'll just do the gastroscopy but I am still going to make you poop your guts out just to punish you for coming to this hospital" he said. I may be paraphrasing slightly here.

My phantom gallbladder contracted spitefully with imaginary stress pain.

A nurse came to fetch me for the gastroscopy a little while later. I was surprised when she made me walk instead of wheeling me on the hospital bed (one of the highlights of being admitted, along with the medical equivalent of vodka and caviar; intravenous pharmaceutical draks).

The mri bell boy came at the same time but she told him I must go to the dr first, it'll "only be five minutes".

I thought this was rather strange because usually I lie around in the pre-theater room for about fifteen minutes, tripping on the calmy pill they give you when you pretend to be hysterically scared of going under, before the anaesthesiologist comes and offers me the specials of the day ("today I can offer you the roofy of forgetfulness or the magic mushroom of sleepy time and for dessert a nice injection of Morphle").

She led me to a reception area where other normal people sat and told me to sit down and stfu.

"Um, excuse me mrs nurse but I haven't been given my knocker-outer for this procedure yet?"

"Yes usually we don't do that here, but you can ask the doctor"

"The guy that thinks I have munchausen?"

But she was already gone. Did she even really exist?

I was led to a cluttered room where I was handed a green laminated card with instructions typed on it.

- Don't cough while pipe is down throat and deep into stomach

- Don't grab or scrabble maniacally at the doctor's arms while he's pushing said pipe down throat and deep into stomach until little bit can be seen peeking out of your anus

- Stop crying and man the fuck up

Or something in that line.

"It's not painful, it's just uncomfortable" said the lady with the strong arms who had handed me the card.

"Isn't that code for extremely painful and humiliating?"

She held my gaze without blinking.

"Here's my patient!" The doctor said jovially as he skipped into the room.

"Now please lie down on your left side and open wide"

I was starting to think this was all a vivid nightmare and started wishing I would wake up soon.

"Um, Doctor, I think you forgot about the anaesthesia and the part where I am knocked unconscious for the entire procedure?"

"That's too expensive, now say aaaah"

Wait, what? Again with the expensiveness. Are YOU paying for the anaesthesia or am I?

He inserted a thing into my mouth that resembled the speculum the gyne uses to jack open your special place so he could inspect your tonsils. The strong armed lady pinned me to the bed and held me down with both her arms and her upper body. I could see the stubble on her cheek. She smelled of Old Spice and depression and I could swear I saw a tattoo on her upper arm that said "Mom", peeking from under under her sleeve.

"This little miss is an oral hygienist so she knows all about mouth stuff"

What?

He then proceeded to ram a crowbar into the back of my mouth.

"Now just give me a tiny swallow"

"Whike a whird?" 

(Like a bird?)

They waited patiently for me to swallow the crowbar. I tentatively tried and felt like a large crowbar was inserted into my throat and I was being forced to try and swallow it. Which is exactly what was happening.

This is hell. I'm in hell. I thought to myself.

I finally managed to gobble the pipe down and felt it wiggling down my esophagus, ram it's way through my peptic valve and into my stomach.

"I am now pumping your stomach full of air so I can see better"

"WAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" I exclaimed as I reflexively vomited all of the air out along with a bit of my stomach lining and spleen.

"No. Bad patient! Stout! Don't vomit up the air or I have to do it again and it'll take longer, just breathe"

I screwed shut my eyes and allowed some more air into my stomach.

".....WAAAAAAAAargh!"

'Stop it!"

Again the doctor inflated my stomach exactly like a rugby ball.

"WARGLE?"

"No"

I panted the way I do when I decide to start jogging and get halfway around the block before changing my mind and going home to bake (flop) brownies and then cry into them.

"Almost done. I am retreating now"

I could feel the hosepipe slowly trailing my insides and waaaaarghed a bit more to help it along.

"All done, see ya later!" Said the doctor as I sat up to mop my streaming eyes and nose.

"Time for your mri, mrs G!"

"Have you had anything to eat or drink today?" The radiologist asked me.

"Yeah, I just ate a camera"

"Haha, yes I heard"

(You heard me waaaaaargh all the way across the hospital or heard as in a little bird told you?)

She pushed me into a narrow tunnel.

"The machine is going to give you instructions, please follow them closely"

I started panicking a little bit once inside because I suddenly felt extremely claustrophobic and a bit like Sandra Bullock in The Vanishing (spoiler, she was buried alive, slowly suffocating as Keifer Sutherland fannied about looking for her).

"Breathe in" said the machine in a monotone female voice. 

Why is it always a female voice? I am forever screaming curses at the gps/robot vacuum/Siri and Google assistant, calling it a crazy bitch. I bet if it were a man's voice we'd all be celebrating the machines for being assertive and strong and then proceed to give it a promotion and a massive pay raise.

"Now breathe normally"

I blew air out of my mouth and pretended I was doing yoga until I remembered that I hated yoga and would rather be hospitalized, tortured and ridiculed before doing it again, ever. Especially Bikrum Hot Yoga, what kind of sadistic maniac invented that? Trying to balance on one of your ears while having heat stroke sucks balls.

"Breathe in. Now breathe out NO IN AGAIN, haha!" Said the machine.

Crazy bitch.

"There's nothing wrong with you other than a minuscule hernia in your stomach and a weird lymph issue in your gut that's reserved exclusively for children" said the doctor later.

YOU'RE a minuscule hernia in my stomach and a weird lymph issue in my gut that's exclusively reserved for children, I wanted to say.

It was not my first rodeo when it came to contracting kid diseases when I am not technically allowed to.

I once came down with coxsackie (hand, foot, mouth disease) after putting my baby's whole foot into my mouth just to see if it would fit.

"Fanfuckingtastic, can I please go home now?"

"Please do" he said.

Driving to Seemann's to buy a whole cheesecake 

to eat in the car on the way home, I reflected on my life choices.

Maybe I should just up my psych meds and save us all some money and tears.

Two Carat Kidney Stone

 I am having a very bad dream. In the dream a tiny supernova, a mininova if you may, is blooming in my lower right side. Heat waves radiate outward into my ribs and lower back. 

The pain, as they say, is exquisite. What a strange way to describe something so deeply unpleasant.

I start waking up but still feel so tired and I think to myself, maybe it will pass soon and I can go back to sleep.

What time is it anyway?

The babe had skipped her midday nap and we'd gone to bed just before 19:00. I have learned the hard way to sleep pretty much as soon as the baby sleeps because you never know when you might have to cut your night's rest short to give a child medicine/freshly squeezed pomegranate juice/avocado-prawn cocktails/play dress up at midnight or charge to casualties because of a sudden high fever.

The mininova stays put, burning and stinging and stabbing into my ribs.

Glancing at the clock I see it's only just shy of 21:00 but the night was dark my friends. The night often is darkest just before a supernova...I bet.

I stagger up and towards the medicine box. I have a special little medicine first aid container but who has time to place things neatly into special containers?

Not I. Under the bathroom sink I have a fraying cardboard box chock-full of nearly empty bottles of Nurofen, old plasters, leaking cough syrup and pediatric Iliadin.

Tommie is sitting on the bed, clicking away at the mouse and doing his best I-am-pretending-to-do-something-important-but-actually-I-am-mucking-about-with-my-little-crypto-games impersonation.

"I am having very much bad pain. Do you have the Buscopan?"

"I think so, why?"

"Well gimme. My appendix is bursting"

"Are you sure it's not just a poop?"

"No, I'm not. I mean yes. I mean, just hand it over, already"

He finds it quite quickly for someone that has trouble finding things ever.

"Go stand by the fireplace, see if it helps?"

I crouch in front of the fire. The mininova doesn't give a shit and keeps supernova-ing.

"Well, I'm off to casualties, then"

"Want me to drive you?"

"Are you crazy? I don't have time to wait around for you to putter about getting dressed and looking for things. Appendix! Bursting! Stay here with the kids and await further instructions"

Driving to the hospital it occurs to me that apart from my appendix bursting and killing me, fainting behind the wheel might also be detrimental.

Despite my fraught with danger ride, I arrive at the emergency unit, where there is but one parking spot open. The reason, I presume, for it's openness, is because of its oblique angle and narrow access point.

It takes me about fifteen little forward/backward maneuvers but eventually I manage to park without pranging my or someone's else's car.

"Good evening. I am having much bad pain. Please help"

The lady at reception tells me to sit for a minute.

I do no such thing.

Instead I stand hunched to the right, groaning and drooling a little onto my shoulder while staring at her without blinking.

She seems unsettled enough to fetch a sister rather quickly.

The sister ushers me into a little room that I am familiar with by now. It is a novel experience being in it by myself instead of trying to hold onto a mad, bucking toddler, howling I AM LEGION! At the celing in a double voice.

"How's the pain, from one to ten?"

I consider the question. 

    1. Waking up from an emergency c-section - 7

    2. Pap-smear - 1

    3. Mammogram - 2

    4. Mashing your second toe into the wheel of a Checkers trolley - 9 

    5. Contractions - 27

"Maybe 8?"

The nurse seems suitably impressed.

The emergency care unit is busy but I am the only patient groaning and shuffling akwardly to a bed. People try to stare without me noticing and I feel a little thrill at being seen. Finally a bit of sympathy and recognition!

"I am going to put a drip in to start managing your pain" the lovely and beautiful nurse tells me.

I hate needles.

You know something is terribly wrong when the notion of a drip excites me.

I actively enjoy the feeling of the drip being placed, secured and opened.

Cool liquid runs up my arm and into my brain, telling it to shhhhhh....shhhh shhh shhhhhhhhh.

My brain complies but the mininova still flickers and sizzles in the distance.

"Hello, I am Dr Blah-Blah. What seems to be the problem?"

"Well hello Dr Blah-Blah! My appendix burst about an hour ago, you see Dr, and now I fear I might die from septic shock or whatever the hell happens when poop floods your system and whatnot"

"I see. Does it hurt when I do this, this and this"

"Yes, yes and oweeeeeee!"

"Judging by your symptoms and level of pain (ah the recognition) I suspect it's a kidney stone. I am sending you for a ct scan. Please sign here"

"That sounds fancy and expensive. What am I signing?"

"That if your medical aid doesn't cover the cost, you are responsible"

"But Dr. I haven't been responsible a day in my life ha-ha!"

The pain meds may have made me a bit devil may care.

"My savings have been depleted since Jan the 2nd. What if I am admitted? Will they pay then?"

"Yes, from the hospital benefits"

As I am wheeled to radiography, I utter one of the stranger prayers of my life.

"Dear God. Please make me sick enough to be admitted but not so sick that my children might have to be raised by an evil step-mother, whom as a follow up prayer I would like to be a porker in order for my soul to be at peace in the hereafter "

The scan is exciting and indeed fancy. I feel like I am in an episode of House and supposed to have a seizure so they can queue suspenseful music and shout at each other that I am flatlining or hemorrhaging or my tatto ink is being sucked out of my skin by magnets.

"You have a kidney stone and as far as kidney stones go, it's quite large. It probably will not pass on its own. We can either admit you and book a theater (operating not operatic) to remove it (thank you Lord!) Or send you home with a sieve and some elephant painkillers and see what happens (nooooooooo!).

"Although obviously I don't want to be admitted (lie), it might be the wiser choice, Dr"

"I agree. The sister will come give you some elephant painkillers and take you up to the wards"

"Thank you, Dr" sez me, the long-suffering patient and mother of two.

Higher Power - 1

Medical aid - 0

I keep up a steady stream of chatter as the beautiful, saintly nurse wheels me through gleaming corridors.

"So, what's your name? Love your hair. Will it count as racist if I do my hair like that? Either way, what's new in your life (squinting at name-tag), Goeloe-kie-lê?"

"Blahblressbloopbgraphêhla babba-sessie" she rattles off to a guy sitting in front of the glass entrance to ward whatever.

"I'm kind of hungry. And thirsty! PARCHED actually. Any grapetizer around? Maybe a virgin mojito? Okay, I'll settle for a frappuccino"

"Nil per mouth. Theater in the morning"

"Oh I haven't been to the theater in AGES! Think the last show I saw was The Lion King. You ever see it? No? T'was amaze-balls! Gosh, the giraffe alone! Kablooyee! went my brain. Hey, why is it so dark in here?"

I notice sleeping figures in the beds around me, snoring peacefully.

"HAAAAY EVERYBODY!"

"SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"Oh. Well whups! Guess I'll just...read? Yassss, queen"

Throughout the night I read and scroll and send WhatsApp messages to everyone in my phonebook and occasionally doze off but the Blue Whale pain meds give me the sensation of tripping over a dead badger, causing me to jerk back to consciousness, if you could call it that.

At some point during the night there is a slight popping sensation and something akin to a fetal kick in my abdomen.

I make exactly three visits to the bathroom, peeing into a white cup with mesh at the bottom that irksomely makes me urinate on my hand without fail.

And on the third visit, I hear a plink sound and look down to find a tiny pebble with jagged borders in my cup.

My cup runneth over! The joy the sight of this little pebble brings me could be likened to a tiny birth. I stare at it and talk to it and take ten million photographs, later to be edited with the utmost care and artistic sensitivity.

I delay notifying staff because of fear that they would stop my rhinoceros tranquilizer and remove my lovely drip but eventually hunger and thirst drive me to fanny down to the nurse's station to demand some coffee. It seems rude to do the emergency call button just for coffee. I mean it's not a hotel, for goodness sake!

In the morning light, the urologist visits me and is awful chipper at the early hour.

"Well you just don't take any nonsense, do you? Sommer passed quite a hefty stone right out! May I have it please?"

"But of course! She's a beauty"

"I mean to send away to the lab for analysis "

"Oh, right. I was...kidding"

"And that's you! A nurse will come to remove the drip (😞) and discharge you (😐)".

Arriving home to find disheveled, unfed kids and a tired and irritable husband harshed my high a bit.

"When are you weaning Danté so she can grow up already?"

"You were weaned after three months and you still haven't grown up"

"What's that you're mumbling?"

"Nothing "

Wait. What just happened?

 "I suspect your husband has Asperger's Syndrome" the pediatric neurologist tells me.

"Uh. Are you serious?" I stutter

"Well, it's not an official diagnosis but I am fairly certain"

"But...why?"

"You should read up about it. They often have long hair"

(So do all my exes)

"They also often have facial piercings or earrings "

(Oh shit)

"And they almost always go into engineering or software"

(Oh dear...I might be an Aspyophile. Is that a thing?)

"They don't make eye contact and tend to not speak but when they do they talk in a monotone voice"

I start to relax. The Dr doesn't know Tommie like I do. 

The fact that the consultation cost almost R3000 is enough to make anyone not want to speak to you, okay, guy.

Three hours earlier; break of dawn.

I stumble out of bed with a toddler in my arms to go fumble some coffee into a cup that I then struggle to drink on the patio as the sun rises and the baby cries because I dared do something I wanted to do for five minutes.

As I blearily look at my child in the early morning light, I go cold as I behold her left eye is swollen almost completely shut.

It's fine, I say to myself. 

Just an eye infection.

I will get some antibiotic eye ointment.

I hope the neurologist doesn't think she always looks like this...

Something very Quasimodo going on there...

Anyway, I start getting ready for the day and drop off the kids around 08:00 just to fetch Danté again at 09:00.

"Why don't we just keep her here until 09:00?" asks Tommie, Mr I-get-to-poop-alone.

"Because I would like to look nice for the pediatric neurologist. He might be tall."

This seems to satisfy Tommie and off we go.

Going to the Zuid Afrikaanse Hospital has its own kind of je ne sais qoui.

There are two street entrances, both narrow and sudden in their appearance. It's an exciting guessing game in figuring out which one to use, depending on the specialist you are visiting.

This experience becomes utterly exhilarating when combined with "helpful" snarks, coming from your spouse in the passenger seat and loud wailing coming from your toddler in the back seat.

You could further enhance the whole theme by having, say, hearing aids whipped at your head.

I manage to navigate the first entrance (wrong one btw) without flattening a lamp pole or pedestrian or feeding my husband a knuckle sandwich.

The guy at the ticket station (yes, a real, live person, sitting in a box, like at tollgates) doesn't look at me as I wave my hand at the button. 

It's just far enough for me to start worrying about being that person who has to open their car door to get to the damn ticket machine. 

Crick, whispers my neck. Something snaps gently in my armpit and finally the ticket appears with a soft whirr.

Okay. Step one complete. We are entering the premises.

Step two: find the right consulting room.

Check. (Only a few minutes of dazed wandering around the hospital, looking for clues.)

When we finally find ourselves in the waiting room there are thankfully no other patients waiting, which gives me the opportunity to breastfeed my little tick, narrowly watching the receptionist for judgement.

She doesn't seem to mind.

The Dr comes out of his office and looks uncomfortable.

I hastily pack away the boobs and shuffle inside.

It's not even that they are gorgeous and making people uncomfortable because of their amazingness. To be honest, the prostheses is still perky as hell but the natural breasts hang off them like boxers that just lost a fight and are clinging onto consciousness by a thread.

Just let us die, they seem to croak at me from inside my feeding bra (who echoes their sentiment).

The Dr asks many many, oh so many questions that I already answered on the very very, oh so very annoying form his receptionist had sent me the week before.

I don't mind the questions on forms but the templates drive me to distraction.

Ever heard of drop downs, apps and the 21st century, people?

Once I have to open something in DocHub, just fucking shoot me.

Finally he goes to check her scans in another room and just before exiting, he turns around and says jokingly:

"Your husband, by the way, is such a warm and communicative person...I will give you his diagnosis as well"

I had all but forgotten Tommie was even in the room. He was sitting in the corner chair with his head down, looking at his phone, grunting responses every 20 minutes or so.

Probably randomly.

I believe Tommie's unique brain has a knack for selective hearing.

Something like; "Blah blah blah blah blah droëwors (recognition and animation) blah blah (goes back to sleep).

Mentioning cryptocurrency, I find, is the most effective way of communicating with him.

I start all my WhatsApps with: "Important Crypto Question incoming" rapidly followed by the mundane: "Do you need something from Spar?" Before his lucid REM cycle kicks back into gear.

"Blah blah blather bloop" says the neurologist.

"Blubber blap R3000 can be paid at reception blurgle"

Tommie is not pleased and neither is Danté who is raving with boredom and indignation at having her a-hole unexpectedly checked by a neurologist. She, and us, were not prepared for a-hole examinations (this includes the consultation fee).

We were also not prepared for a twofer diagnoses.

Luckily Tommie was outside the office when the Dr dropped his bombshell on me.

He concludes the consultation saying

"This is my cellphone number, please WhatsApp me if you have any questions about Asperger's"

I gawk at him and turn to leave.

As an afterthought he mentions:

"Her eye is worrying me a little, I will give you a script for ointment but please just follow me quickly"

He pops next door into a pediatrician consulting room, storms passed the receptionist, barges into the Dr's office (where she is busy with a patient) and all but drags her by the ear into the hallway to "just have a quick look at this eye".

"I am going to admit you right away" she says. Apparently eye infection can easily slip into the brain and fuck up your kid, six-love.

The world ends a little bit for me. Tommie's face reflects my devastation. 

I don't know why, exactly. He's not the one getting incarcerated with a three-second-attention-span illiterate who frequently unleashes her pent-up fury onto your breasts, cell-mate . I think maybe he heard Blah blah blah, your work weekend away just evaporated into mist and was replaced with invaluable one-on-one time with your four year old daughter who seems to aspire to being The Bane of your Existence when she grows up.

On the way to the unavoidable Covid testing tent I desperately fight the urge to round on Tommie and hiss " Can you PLEASE act LESS fucking autistic in front of neurologists! Make eye contact, for fuck's sake, say something and FOR ALL THAT IS GOOD AND DEAR IN THE WORLD, FLUCTUATE YOUR TONE OF VOICE WHEN YOU DO!"

I narrowly escape this fraught situation by thankfully having a nasal swab jabbed deep into my brain.

I fill in some more forms with streaming eyes and a 9kg baby dangling like a cliff hanger from my poor, resigned breast.

When we finally get to emergency care to start the admition process, I bid Tommie a tearful goodbye (he looks suspiciously relieved) and stand in the hallway, listening to nurses poking my baby full of holes, trying to find a vein to put the drip (and big-time antibiotics) in.

Once they are done and I get to swoop in and rescue her, I warn them that their little pussy bandage is going to tear like tissue paper in the wake of my wrathful child but they titter nervously and leave.

Danté cries herself to sleep during which time we are wheeled to the x-ray department to have her abdominal organs and heart sonars done.

Mr two-for-one pediatric neurologist had told us it's to check for tuberosclerosis which he also forbade us, on the pain of death, to Google.

"You will have a heart attack if you do" he tantalizes us.

At x-rays they inform me that the guy who does the abdominal sonar is there but the heart sonar guy is not, so will I mind being wheeled back first thing tomorrow?

I want to sarcastically pull out my diary to check what I had planned for the next day.

Have a life. Be free. Frolick in the wilderness. Eat own food. But first cook own food when get hungry so can eat own food. But also before that go to grocery store to buy food ingredients with which to cook and then the eating. Also, have any money so can buy stuff to make other stuff to stuff into face. 

Suddenly hospital doesn't seem all that bad.

After being wheeled back to emergency, Danté wakes up and promptly rips out her drip in a fountain of blood.

Their little bandage had given way at the first sign of conflict. Pussy-ass little punk bandage.

The nurses seem surprised, even though I warned them repeatedly.

We get admitted into the children's ward and the pediatrician announces that Danté had probably had enough antibiotics in the hour the drip was still in and will only get hooked up again the next day. Seems weird to me that it was such a mad rush to get it inserted and us admitted and then suddenly just grow flacid and useless.

Like... can't we go home and just come in for the antibiotics every day, then?

I want to scream;

"If it's money you want, I know people!" (I really don't, everyone I know is broke as fuck).

"I can get you money, or, or jewelry!" (Again, no chance. Zero. Unless you like shards of broken glass because if you hold it just right it reflects light quite prettily or if it cuts you and you bleed profusely all over it, it can almost resemble a ruby, especially if you are crying and/or drunk whilst looking at it).

I am met with firm resistance.

We get a lovely private room with one giant cot in the middle.

"Urm, excuse me miss Sister Nurse, Healer of children and Warden of the North. Might I bother you for a bed, or a mattress even, so I can bed-share with my tot?"

"No"

"Maybe a blanket? On the floor?"

"No can doozeville, baby doll"

Lovely.

I sleep in the cot, next to Danté.

The next morning I hobble into the matron's office, my neck still bent at a 90% angle and mewl at her "Please...I beg of you. A bed. My kingdom for a bed!" 

(My kingdom's coffers are empty but I can offer you four cats, one of which pees everywhere because she is anxious all the time, Lord knows about what, and a "pre-loved" (eye-roll) Rav4 that is bankrupting me.)

"If we do it for you, we must do it for everyone, and we can't"

I stare pointedly at the empty ward.

"You are putting me in a very difficult position" she says.

Yeah? Try sleeping in a cot.

"How might one go for a smoke up in this bitch?" I ask one of the friendlier looking nurses.

"Well, how do you do it at home?"

"I give her to her dad"

"Well there ain't no dad here"

Bitch.

"What do you do when he's not around?"

"I take her with me and give her an occasional pull"

"She can't go with you to the smoking area"

Big surprise...I almost DIED with surprise.

I end up locking her in her cot and going for a very unsatisfying, guilt ridden cigarette.

When I get back, they had expertly found a vein in her foot and inserted the new drip without her even crying. It is also secured with something resembling duct tape. Good job, pediatric ward.

"Why do emergency staff do anything? Can't they just fill in forms and send us to you guys to do stuff?"

"No"

Another shocker.

Food was nice, though.

By the third day I had gotten my cot-sleeping skills honed. Not so bad if you're dead tired from wandering the halls, trying to navigate security doors with a toddler on the hip and a drip pole-roller-thingy in your hand.

The hospital is old and has the markings of Dutch architecture. The halls smack of history and as the baby and I walk along, I dream up stories about how it came to be and how it might have been a hundred years ago when it was first built.

Incidentally, changing pull ups when your toddler has a drip attached to her foot is hard.

"You have to wiggle the whole thing from the end of the drip right through to her bum. Pull ups are a BIG problem" says the nurse who I've noticed thinks everything is a big problem.

"Well, when I was packing this diaper bag I had no idea my kid would have a drip in her foot later on. Can't we just disconnect it quickly?"

"No, it's an infection risk. And that's a BIG problem"

Eventually Danté's swollen eye calmed down and we were released back into society, cringing and blinking owlishly at the light as we exited the building.

Gosh, I keep taking my health and the health of my kids for granted.

Just kdding, they (and I) are sick all the damn time and I pray the nights away.

"A creche is like a snake. If you keep toying with it, eventually it will bite you" sez the pediatrician.

Okay, lady. We'll talk again when you have your own little ray of sunshine that makes you dream of lovely, snake-creches that look after and entertain them for four to eight blissful hours of the day during which you can have a life and frolick in the wilderness.

Just kidding, I love them so much, I cry every day I drop them off at school.

JUST KIDDING, HAHA, I CRY WITH RELIEF!

Triple just kidding. I love them so much it breaks my heart but I allow myself to get tired and frustrated and overwhelmed.

Mothering is haaaaaard, man.

But please do it. 

Have kids. 

Misery (and unimaginable fulfillment and joy) loves company in the pediatric ward.

A Daughter Named Dante

"I'm afraid I don't have good news for you today. Out of the brainstem auditory response, bone conduction and neurological tests performed today, there has been no response from either ear".

Me, Tommie and Dante all stare at the audiologist in slack-jawed amazement.

"What?"

"We are going to refer you to the cochlear implant team at the University of Pretoria to start the process"

"Are you saying she is completely deaf?"

"We don't use that word anymore but rather profound hearing loss"

"Okay...so...but she's deaf?"

"We are going to do follow up tests in two weeks"

"But...why?"

Mumbling something about the machines.

Me; gathering denial and hope; maybe the machines are broken?

But to be honest; it has been kind of painfully obvious that Dante couldn't hear all too well.

"You don't think she's just stubborn?" asks the babysitter when I mentioned our suspicions long before all the tests and whatnot.

"Well, sure, she's stubborn as fuck but also she seems a little bit deaf"

Babysitter doesn't look concerned.

Good. I don't need more concerned people.

My mom: "We are extremely concerned about... (enter my brain; thinking up all the things that could follow this statement, e.g. "your smoking, your marriage, your behaviour, your mental illness, your health, OUR health, someone else's health, the pandemic, the possibility of an asteroid colliding with earth within the next 24 hours and all our assets are tied up so we can't go to Gold Reef City for old time's sake"...Dante's hearing"

Me: "I know. Me too" (secretly going into a blind panic behind my calm exterior because gosh if my parents are so worried maybe I should be totally hysterical(er)?

Jump back to present.

Audiologist: "Are you okay?"

Me: "Sure, I'm fine, I knew all along, heh heh, kay byyyeeee!"

Twenty minutes later; crying hysterically and sucking on a fistful of cigarettes between sobs.

Why did this happen?

Is it because I complain almost incessantly about how hard it is to Mother?

Is it because I used my own weight in mood-altering substances in my not-so-recent wild youth?

Is it because I harbour a deep-seated distrust and resentment towards car-guards?

"I have always had a creeping suspicion that my daughter can't do math's because I never carried her in a kangaroo pouch as a baby", my cousin tells me.

(Please remind me to tell my mom that this is the reason I myself can't do math's and that she should give me some money to make up for it).

I find my mind wandering back to little glimpses in the past.

Dante not being woken at night by violent slashing noises and screaming...I like my horror movies...and also Tommie and me may or may not have some weird sex stuff we're into.

Dante not being woken or in fact perturbed at all by her super drama queen sister, frequently having million decibel, never-ending meltdowns.

Dante not having a fright when Tommie says "BOO!" to her when I finally get her to sleep after a long day. A fact that definitely saved his life on numerous occasions.

I mean honestly, who DOES that?!

Dante not going into screaming hysterics when I electrically inflate the kiddies pool with her sitting in it (think sudden, unexpected whooshing whirr from pump) but rather just sitting there, philosophically watching the tubes rise.

Dante looking only slightly disappointed and confused when a balloon pops right in her face.

Like the sands through the hour glass; these are the nights of my life. Thinking of times my little girl seemed to not hear so good.

Is it because I took Serdep when I was pregnant?

Okay maybe but if I didn't, none of our little family unit of four might be alive today. 

I will set the scene with a limerick; 

There once was a virus called Covid

And everyone got locked down, t'was so shit

A third trimester mother

Almost her two year old did smother

But Serdep had everything covered.

Second question; is it because I selfishly wanted to experience an unmedicated home birth in a tub?

Okay, so yes, she came three weeks early (just like her sister who hears me opening a chocolate on the other side of the house, behind a closed door, with the tv and fan on, in the middle of the night.

And also, yes, she needed oxygen which the midwife gave her. Also I took her to the pediatrician the next day and he was in-love with her. 

I like him. He has long hair.

We never did a newborn hearing test and I can't for the life of me remember why because I remember thinking about it a lot.

"These things sometimes slip through the cracks" the audiologist tells me.

"Also; babies need to be about 10kg before certain tests and scans can be done"

Dita is four and just reached 11kg, my mother in law is minute in size.

This is all her fault...

Is totally irrational blame-shifting a stage of grief? Ah I'll just lump it in there with angerdenialbargaining.

Is it because I sent her to creche at just two days shy of three months old and maybe she caught an obscure virus that causes deafness in babies?

And if so, why the hell did no one warn me?

And also, why isn't all the other little snotnoses deaf?

Ag, either way.

Even though the tests have been kind of interesting and I'm having fun learning South African Sign Language, my heart pendulums between bleeding and breaking and then just kind of vibrating with shock and dismay.

People from all over the place have offered their support and I must admit, the attention has been nice. I haven't gotten much attention recently, being all goodie two shoes; dead-boring, clean and sober and going to bed at the-baby's-asleep-o-clock (between 19:00 (praise be) and 20:00 (will I never sleep again? Maybe I should just drug her).

Come to think about it, might she be deaf because I have drugged her just a tiny bit on only a few occasions? You know...for sanity's sake? Or lack thereof?

Nah. Can't be that. Then the whole world would be deaf, Shirley.

I would gladly give up getting any attention at all ever again if it meant her hearing would return or exist even, if she was born deaf.

Is it because she had numerous ear infections and I only took her to an ent at 18 months to get grommets inserted?

"If there is fluid in the middle ear, everything sounds like you're under water. People say their child differs like night and day after grommet insertion." the doctor at the emergency room tells me when I take Dante for the millionth time because she is in so much pain from her ears and antibiotics and Aspelone just doesn't seem to be cutting it anymore and I'm freaking the fuck out.

"Cool! She is kind of moody which can be annoying," I sez to the Doctor "how soon can we do it?"

Literally three days later she had her grommets. It was a harrowing experience. I couldn't give her boob-juice since four in the morning. The operation was only at 09:15 after the youngest baby was taken into surgery first and then the sneaky AF other OLDER baby and his sneaky AF mommy pushed in line and went before us too.

I wanted to object but have an innate fear of nurses...

Dante was furious. 

They couldn't keep her hospital bracelet thingy on anywhere, without her ripping it off within seconds and trying to push it into someone's anus (mostly mine).

"It's okay, we'll just remember who she is and what needs to be done" the nurse chirps at me, having a wonderful day, not having her nipples pulled right through her collar by ravenous, rageful little baby hands. 

I suppose if they mistakenly removed her adenoids, tonsils and inserted grommets it could save me a trip or two in the future, plus then I could sue them for the money I need for cochlear implants.

They sound expensive.

Heh he, sound. See what I did there?

After the grommets and three days of green ooze coming out of her ears we eagerly started watching her for signs of improved hearing.

Over the next month I felt like I was watching a candle flickering in an occasional gust.

At times we were sure she could hear. At other times it seemed like she was unable to hear even the loudest sound.

I pestered the ENT day and night, sending suggestions, questions and even studies, explaining to him exactly what the problem is and how to fix it, using this new experimental treatment some guy invented in Centurion (ENT's hate this man for inventing cheap, 100% successful ear healing tool! the click bait headline might say).

Eventually I went to a different ENT and then pestered him night and day.

Finally both of them, almost simultaneously, referred me to audiologists for extensive tests.

"I mean, should we really even do it? What could it possibly accomplish? We should totally rather do that three minute brand new operation that fixes everything, that I read about on the internet?" I say to Tommie.

"Well maybe we should just do the tests so we can stop constantly asking each other whether we think she heard this or that or that other thing or this here gun shot right next to her ear?"

So we did.

And right in front of my eyes, that little flame flickered and died.

My baby is deaf.

But at least those pesky A Quiet Place aliens won't get her. 

With my laugh (which will one day return to me), I'll be one of the first to go belly up into their hideous alien tummies.

The Divine Comedy of Danté's Birth Story

02/06/2020 - 03/06/2020

I had decided to pay the midwife a final visit at 36 weeks to grill her about the risks of a natural birth after a previous cesarean.

A friend had recently told me about a friend of hers whom attempted a home birth after cesarean and had a catastrophic uterine rupture around her cs scar, consequently losing her perfect little baby and ending up in icu with an emergency hysterectomy.

This obviously scared the bejewelledness out of me. On the other hand, this particular midwife had a 98% success rate with vbacs (vaginal birth after cesarean) and has never lost a patient or seen a uterine rupture. Surely she has some special magic to add to the mix?
I also liked that she worked with soft, natural light, calming music, aromatherapy and a team of doula's.

I mean if you are going this route, might as well do the airy fairy version, right? I had no intention of attempting a vbac on the flat of my back in a private hospital where no one seems even remotely capable of communicating coherently with you about what's going on. It took me years to piece together what actually happened with my firstborn.

Either way, she examined me and everything she said and did made me more relaxed and determined to do this naturally so I decided to commit.
She told me to start using evening primrose oil, which I did. She referred me to a chiropractor (very sceptical about them but hey) and I made an appointment.

On Monday I thanked my gyne for his wonderful services and relieved him of his duty as designated birth practitioner.

On Tuesday (yesterday) I went to the chiro and had myself "unlocked", "aligned" and "kafoofled" (jk). Then I went to Irene Dairy Farm with my little girl to celebrate our new found freedom on level 3 of lockdown.

This was not a simple move because somewhere between the trip to the chiro and home my car picked up car-Rona and refused to start again when we wanted to head out. I was so determined to go show my toddler some cows and other people, though, that husband and I managed to wiggle out his little car from behind my hulking shipwreck and off we went.

Being in the open air and seeing other people with little kids running around was fantastic. We ran into friends, we hugged even though we have been told repeatedly not to by Uncle Cyril. My little girl hugged a random strange lady and I allowed it. The sun shone and the breeze wafted gently over Autumn leaves. Life was lovely.

Came home, washed off the Rona, fed the little one and went to bed (I totally just made this process sound easy, which it isn't but don't get me started on that right now). Lying in bed I started having irritating Braxton Hicks pains but the baby has been pushing down on my cervix for a few weeks already and bh contractions have been par for the course. It ended up really bothering me so I took two paracetamol and drifted off to sleep.

At 23:00 I awoke to what felt like mild contractions. Having went into labour with my firstborn at exactly 36 weeks and 5 days, I had secretly been waiting for something to happen. A bloody show or ruptured membranes, perhaps. I wasn't too hurried, however,  because it took me 21 hours to get to four centimetres with the first one so why rush it now?
I then had a bowel movement and thought maybe the pains will abate now but around half past I decided to phone the midwife just to be safe.

I could hear from her voice that she had been sleeping and was really hoping this cup will pass until morning. She said to take two paracetamol and get into a warm bath.

"When should I phone again?" I asked a bit desperately because I was convinced that I was starting to labour but felt guilty for waking her and like the polite thing to do was to be obedient to the trained professional and not to "stribbel tee".

"When contractions hurt so much you can't walk or talk and they are spaced five minutes apart and about one minute long".

Okee doke, into the bath, down with the pills. Downloaded a contraction timer on my phone and started asking questions on WhatsApp and Facebook groups.

It seemed like the whole world was asleep where normally they would be bothering me with messages and jokes when I wanted to rest.
Thanks Murphy. 'Ol Murph. Murph-Meister, how's it hangin'.

After an hour and a half of steady contractions getting more and more painful I got out of the tub and rang the midwife again.

"There is blood now", I say hopefully.
"Send a photo", she replies sceptically.

By the time she received the photos, minutes later, I was screaming.

Contractions came about every two minutes and lasted about 50 seconds and hurt like seven shits. I was no longer quiet and the toddler woke up and started demanding answers. During all this time I had been pottering around, brushing and flossing my teeth (and remember kids; if I can do it during early labour, you have no excuse not to. Oral hygiene is important dammit), and packing a few extra things.

When contractions got to noise level 6 out of 10 I could no longer focus on tasks at hand and decided to phone my mom.
I had wanted to phone her for hours but I knew that she would just worry and send me into a panic, which I was managing to do all by myself quite nicely, thank you very much.

I had to hang up the first time because I needed to scream a little bit during a contraction. Somehow in this time I ended up on the phone with both my midwife and my mom and every time I thought I was talking to the professional, going: "OOOOOOOOOW IT HURTS! WHAT SHOULD I DO?!" my poor worried mother would be on the other side going: "Oh dear...I have no idea...perhaps the hospital would be best?".

I finally decided to get the hell out of Dodge now because this was not funny or romantic or a bowel movement anymore.

"Husband!" I bark, a hair's breadth away from snapping my fingers at him, where he is busy leisurely making coffee and contemplating having a poop and a shower, "get in the car."

"What about Dita?"
"She can come along"
"What should I bring?"
*Screaming a bit and then answering breathlessly and irritatedly*
"The shit I've been trying to pack all month and also this evening"

I manage to get outside where the moon is illuminating everything in a dull white glow. The car has locked itself again and another biggie is approaching.

Not wanting to scare the scheister out of the security guard stationed right outside our house by yelling loudly into the night without warning, I limp back into the house to yell at the wall and staircase, scaring the scheister out of my little girl.

Meanwhile Tommie is lugging miscellaneous pieces of baggage into the car and I start making my way back outside. The very second I get into the backseat I feel the need to stand on my hands and knees and roar like a trained circus lion, which I do with gusto, sending all the dogs in the neighbourhood mad.

Happily this inspires my family to finally start getting a move on, I mean which part of "HOOOOOOOOOWWWWWLLLL ROOOOOOAAAAAARRRRR!" don't you understand?

Beloved husband and daughter gets into car and immediately starts asking darling little questions, like:

"Are you okay?"

*Scream-roar!*

"Mamma eina?"

*Roar roar whimper*

"What's happening?"

*Quick Roar* "THE BABY'S COMING OUT!" *gag*.

"Where are we going?"

"TAKE ME TO HOSPITAL, I AM DYING!"

"Which hospital?"

Really?

"THE CLOSEST ONE! PRETORIA EAST...DYING!" *cry and pray pitifully into the backrest*.

Car finally starts pulling away and I envision being injected with large amounts of morphine before passing away peacefully. I vaguely hear husband talking to midwife and being instructed to take me to her and not the hospital. I am too busy roaring, crying and praying to argue.

The trip to the birthing house took approximately one lifetime (later confirmed to have been 18 minutes) during which I clung to the backseat wishing for oblivion, grinding my teeth to a fine dust and pushing with all my might into an adult diaper.

There was a ladybird sitting on the  felt hatchback cover, like the tiniest little doula in existence, going: "You can do this! I'm good luck, maybe some people believe!"

On the way home I realised she was dead, though...

At some point something that felt like a water balloon shot out of me with an almost audible sploosh and another hard, t-shaped thing got stuck in its place.

When we finally stopped at the birthing house, doors opened, hands grabbed at me and people were asking me to get out of the car, which was not going to happen because I was contracting almost constantly and needed to focus all my energy on roaring.

"Elmien, time to get out of the car"

"Une momentito, mon pepito! Having a tiny spot of bother over here and what-have-you, (roar?)"

Gentle hands helped me out of the car-of-doom and into a lovely, softly lit room-of-doom where I continued my song. Three pairs of hands quickly stripped me of my outfit and ushered me into a lovely, warm bathtub-of-doom where my pain suddenly dropped about 50%, promoting the bathtub to Bathtub-of-only-tentative-mewling, which was a monumental step up, ohmywerd.

My hands and knees were grabbed and my cervix unceremoniously frisked and I was ordered NOT to push which threw me off for a bit but then I was ordered to PUSH and the lovely doula was telling me how amazing and powerful I was and how far I've come and how close my baby was.

"Is everything fine? Is the baby okay?" I doubtfully asked the midwife and she said, as calmly as can be: "Of course!"
Everyone looked wide awake and ready to birth about twenty babies and I felt a massive surge of gratitude to these people, leaving their lovely warm beds at 03:00 in the morning so I can roar loudly into their ears for a bit.

The pushing continued, accompanied by me still plaintively roaring (trying very hard to use my "indoor roar") and the team giving weird instructions like push out your navel, into your bum and make a seal with your mouth.

When the baby started grinding down my coccyx I tried to explain to them that I have now changed my mind and would like to close my legs and go home, please, they would have none of it and roped in my traitorous husband to help keep my knees far apart so baby can continue her coccyx destroying little dance.

"The head is coming!"

"You should see your little one's face!"
(Which little one I am still not sure, the toddler gaping into the birthing tub or the baby playing peekaboo in my special place).

"Looks like a blondie!"

BLOOP! PLONKS.

I suddenly had a tiny baby on my chest. She was covered in butter and if she had subtitles, they would read "wtf is this?".

I stared in slack-jawed amazement at this little person that ended up being alive and not killing me in her birthing process, either.

"Hallo klein Danté! Dankie dat jy uitgekom het! Jammer mamma het so gebrul. Dit was bietjie seer" I said, or at least would have said if I weren't too busy blubbering like all the ladies in all the birthing videos I have ever watched.

The midwife, who have now been elevated to status Saint, allowed the umbilical chord to pump the very last of its riches into my little child before handing hubby a pair of special scissors to cut it with.

She then approached the baby and me with a syringe and needle and thinking she meant to inject the baby I gave an indignant little squawk as she jammed it into my thigh.

"Just to bring the placenta out"

So, I had to push a little more and she ended up putting her hand back into me and manually removing a little bit of the placenta that was not detaching and this hurt again but was over quickly at least.

I had torn a little and needed four stitches that were also not fun to endure but honestly, once you've delivered a child in any way, you know that none of it is particularly pleasant or dignified.

The team spent the rest of the morning monitoring me and the baby and gently taking some colostrum from me and syringe feeding it to her when she didn't have the suckling reflex yet. I was fed mini bar ones, jelly beans and Energade and constantly asked if I need anything else.

These people earned every penny they made today and still did it with so much more care, patience and compassion than the arrogant fat cats that delivered my first born at thrice the price.

As the city headed to work and the sun climbed slowly at a winter's angle, we headed home, now the proud parents of two beautiful little princesses.

Hear us roar.