Everyday life happens, and for me everyday is a triple miracle... I've learned so much these past few months and am still learning about life, God, family, friends, love and mostly about myself. But today I'm talking about my mother, Mrs Nomusa Doreen Ntuli, the most amazing woman I know.

That's mom when she was little, she's still the most beautiful woman I know.

As you know now my mother got sick in 1980, she was in a coma for 3 months and woke up in need of one walking stick.... She soon gave birth to my sister Lindelwa and then me, she ended with my brother. The pregnancies weren't easy and as we grew up my mother really started getting sick. When I was around 13 she could barely walk with her cane and within months she was in a wheelchair.... She never complained ever, but we knew she wasn't just paralyzed, mom was sick and in a lot of pain. But my mother had a dream, she wanted to study and work one day, she enrolled at Unisa.

We used to tease mom because she did her degree at Unisa, she started the joke and it lasted throughout her degree studying. We used to say "Mom Unisa is for cowards, people who sneak up on education but full time studying is looking education straight in the eye and going for it". We'd laugh about it and go post her assignments when we were done laughing... Mom, Dad and my brother Mandi are the serial "laughers" in the family, tears stream and those capable even roll down on the floor.

It wasn't until I started studying at Unisa that I started to really appreciate the amount of work it takes to study at home and go for your exam at the chosen exam center. Sure the first year is so easy getting 100%  was a must and I did, all my first levels were passed with 100% and my family tells me I'd maybe study for two days out of the whole what 4 months and still pass. To me that meant one this: the illness hadn't damaged my head.

Doing second year is not so easy, in other words studying at Unisa is not a stroll in the park and third year oh boy Accounting makes you feel like you're studying Mandarin or something.....

So mom, I've said this so many times but you're my hero, you gave birth to three children, you raised us together with Gran and Mom Ndu, everyday you cooked, you cleaned, you washed, you ironed, you made sure we grew up as normal as possible and even though we saw you were sick and  still are, even though we saw your walking sticks and later your wheelchair you never complained, you sang the weirdest songs when you did your housework especially the dishes... And at night you'd take your books and study, you'd do your assignments and you finally got your degree, now I know your health has been even more poor but you have a job now, something you dreamed about for years and years, I'm so proud of you.

At her graduation, now she's doing her

honors, I'm so proud... That watch was

a graduation gift from me.

I consider myself blessed to have a mother so strong, a few weeks ago when my family thought I was dying because it was really bad my mother shouted and said to God "Please, please take the illness from my daughter and give it to me, let me suffer in her place, let me be on the ground bleeding like she is. please I want a normal life for her". I was on the floor at the time groaning but I heard her and started crying. God didn't do that and I thank him because mom has her own aches and pains but the thought, the thought hit me and I just started crying.... That's the woman my mother is, she had her children the hard way, she was already sick and so she's protective, she can't fall asleep when my sister gets off work at 11pm, she has to see her and my brother (he picks her up) enter the house and then sleep.

She went straight back to work

after a 6 month hospital stay, a real trouper.

If I hadn't grown up with this amazing woman my life would be different, her strength gives me strength and yes, she's SUPERWOMAN........ THANK YOU MOM

Sometimes in life no matter how positive you are there are days that make you feel so sad and so sick you can't even think straight, sadly those days have visited my home, built a small little tent and are roasting marshmallows and singing"Cumber ya" (Sorry I don't know how to write that but I've always liked the sound of it)............................ I've had a few nights where I silently cried but like everything else every time I wiped my face I knew I had to pull out of it.. So. I made a plan.

I woke up and thought alright since I seem to be getting worse by the day what can I do to gain some control back. My life has been spinning out of control and I hatted seeing myself paddling backwards... (Ha ha ha, I just thought of how the cartoons starts by running in one spot before the shoot out and run so fast I laugh even though I know it's coming)........ As I was thinking of my dilemma my brother came into my room, we had some words because well we're siblings but when he said something about my situation I said "That's it, put on your shoes brother because we're going outside this house"

We went looking for a Physical Therapist and boy did we find one. I've been working with her eversince and I love that Doctor Girl, well that's not her real name. But yes I found the perfect therapist and I'm so excited about it I've told just about anyone who can understand my weird talking and even weirder sign language.

First time I went to her I was upset because  my right arm (which is my only working arm) was also starting to have the same problems my left arm has, I couldn't lift a glass of water, it had shooting pains and sometimes shocking pains, it was barely working and I kept thinking "No no no no no no no, I can't lose both arms, no no how will I continue with my studies and my blogging"....... When I left her room I was thinking "This woman is a magician, look my fingers are already moving" And thanks to her and the stuff she gave me to support a lot of things on my body I can type again. She knows magic I tell you, meaning I have a lot of trust in her and I hope she can help. Our sessions are 3 times a week.

Now I'm trying to solve my eyes problem and once that's done I'll try to solve the hardest problem, my teeth... My teeth are a big problem but when this year started Mr Man said something thhat I choose to believe. He said "This is 2010 babe, all your dreams will be a reality"

My dreams are not too much and I'll write about then sooner than you can say knife... Thanks to the magic doctor.

                                          Bye And Stay Beautiful...!!!

It is very strange to hear about your life from journals, windows xp and from people, especially when half the stuff you hear sounds like it's taken from the pages of a TV movie script.. That's what I'm doing, I'm putting together the pieces and sometimes I have to take a break and try to wrap everything around my head because it sounds so unreal and tears my heart apart.. These past two weeks I've been feeling more sick then usual, so I spent them listening to more of my story from different people and I also started reading something I found in my flash drive, some sort of diary I kept from 2006 to early 2007. Today I'm gonna talk about events that took place after my coming of age celebration.

As a black South African there are beliefs we have, I can't really say I have them personally because I'm too big a skeptic but they are general beliefs. There are traditional doctors, there are people called Sangomas who are believed to be able to tell you about your problems and see what we mere mortals can't see, they know more about ancestors and are tight with them so to speak. And there's also a general belief that witchcraft exists. Now I DO NOT believe in witchcraft, I've tried to keep an open mind but no matter how much I try I can't buy into the thing I'm sorry.

By February 2005 my family had tried just about everything to help me out, we had knocked on so many doors and were willing to try everything because we had nothing to lose. And that's when people or rather traditional healers started to come up with different theories. We listened and did what they suggested, except when they gave me their concoctions to drink then I didn't do that. I couldn't swallow anything at that point anyway.

I was taken to a healer who claimed he knew who was bewitching me, he said my father should look at a crystal ball thing and would see the person. Dad looked and looked, then the healer gave my father a knife and said he should stab something so the illness can go back to the person who gave it to me in the first place. My poor father did it and the healer said I was healed... Only he was lying to us and dad said he didn't see anyone on the crystal thing, he said he went along with it because he figured we've got nothing to lose.

So we went home but the illness persisted and kept blowing up. I woke up one day and my feet were covered in huge yellow sores, my feet and halfway up my legs. They felt like they were on fire and if you put your hand close to them you could feel the heat coming from them. I cried and cried and mama would dip them in ice water and keep them there. It wouldn't help. The doctor gave me ointment that did nothing. I was in agony and the only thing to do was to pray it didn't get to a point where I'd have to lose my feet and then pray it went away soon.

Praying became our hourly thing, even the children learned to pray because everyone knew I could die any second. I wasn't eating, my left hand was rotting before our eyes, my feet were also rotting and on top of that my stomach problem had taken a whole new level.

One weekend, it was Saturday I woke up and my room was filled with crying people. Mama held my hand and I looked at her and mimed 'what's going on?' she said I shouldn't talk I should rest and then it hit me, I started shaking violently while pure blood came out of my mouth and everyone around me prayed and cried. My aunt (who suffers from heart problems) fainted and was carried out of my room and mama kept calling my name... That whole day was pure hell and listening to them tell me about it made me cry and pray I never go through it again or remember it.

All my close relatives were in my room that day, some were outside and others were in the kitchen and living room. They were all gathered at home because they believed I was dying that day, they had been called because I was so sick everyone believed I was not gonna last till the next day and even though my nurse aunt (she's the head nurse at her hospital) was there trying to give me medicine through injections and giving me supplements and what have you, she also believed I was a goner and like everyone else she was saying her goodbyes.

My family says I realized what was going on and asked for my brother. He was called in and the minute he sat next to me we both started crying, I asked for my phone and while he held it I wrote 'I'm in too much pain and want to die, it's OK don't cry' at that point he ran out of my room and I passed out.

They couldn't wake me up this time, mama was screaming at everyone to wake me up but they couldn't. My aunt felt around and found I had a faint pulse, she informed mama and then gave me something for the pain. She got me comfortable and they decided to take me back to hospital. I say back because hospitals wouldn't keep me for very long, they'd admit me and try to find out what's wrong, then they'd discharge me because they wouldn't find the problem.

By that evening God himself had smiled down on us, he had heard our prayers because not only was I alive but my pulse was stronger than ever and even though the illness hadn't changed, I was awake and the blood coming out of my mouth was no more.. The relatives started leaving with smiles on their faces and I was well on my way to seeing tomorrow;)

This happened a few months after my coming of age celebration and when I heard this story I thanked God for my amnesia, I'm glad I can't remember things like this and I believe with all my heart that God has his reasons for everything and what we think sucks might just be what we need to be able to live our lives.

I don't think day to day life would be easy if I knew everything and whenever my father looks at me and says "I never thought you'd still be here today" I see the pain in his eyes... And whenever I start the shaking it hurts and it's hell but I do know that one day I'll be running down the beach Pamela Anderson style and this will all the just another story on a blog, this too shall pass!!!

These days my health has taken a dive and updating the site is not an easy thing, though I find it helpful to get my thoughts and feelings down, the actual simple process of switching on a laptop and typing is very hard at the moment, not to mention my eyes. They have this constant flashy thing going on and I don’t know how to explain it properly so please bear with me as I give it a shot…. My eyes get tired a lot quicker these days, then they start having a disturbing and blinding flash of some sort. It keeps flashing almost like the way a camera does when you’re taking a picture, except it’s in the eyes and making my vision blurred. Fortunately it comes and goes, I have an appointment with the eye dude this Friday.

Alright I got help writing this post, I wanted write down all the tests I’ve had and the doctors I’ve seen and am seeing. I got the info from my records and also from the doctors I’ve been seeing since I got the amnesia. This is the info that was right here in my boudoir, the other records are at the doctors.

I’ve had the following:

• Gastroscopy - because when I first got sick my stomach was the most problematic along with my head, they still are. It was done by a doctor at a private hospital call La Verna in Ladysmith, South Africa. The results came back only showing hunger but nothing out of the ordinary. * Flexible Sigmoidoscopy - it was also done to find out why my abdomen was so painful and I was forever constipated. 

• Lumber Punch - it was done because one General Practitioner suspected meningitis and transferred me to another private hospital in Pietermaritzburg. From what I heard my biggest complaint was how painful the thing is and I hated it… Results again came back clean and eventually they sent me home. 

• CAT Scan - a search for tumors and what not, another failure. 

• MRI Scan - It was done very late because we thought a cat scan was enough but turns out it’s not… It is expensive and the family was already broke because of a lot of my costs but they put money together and I got the test. It was done at St. Annes, a very good private hospital and again the results came back squeaky clean.
  

• HIV Test - I’ve had this test a number of times because each doctor wants to see for himself/herself before treating me…. Results always come back negative.

Alright, I should mention that I reached a point where I was tired of tests and needles and scans and drips, I wanted non anymore and for a long time I stayed at home and only went to a GP when I really needed to. But a lot of factors, family, will to live, seeing I was still alive, desire to watch my nephew grow up, and my beautiful stranger came into my life and I realized hey I wanna beat this thing, I wasn't done living yet.

I started going to specialists again and my first one was:

• Neurologist - well we first made a mistake and went to a neurosurgeon, he couldn’t help us so we booked an appointment and went to a neurologist. They thought I had some form of nervous system disorder. My seizures were the biggest problem, also the dizziness, vomiting, the eating problem, the involuntary jerking of my body especially my leg and just about everything........................................ The neurologist did a complete neurological evaluation and follow up, after all the testing the doctor said he couldn’t put me on any medication because the tests revealed nothing. So we hightailed our behinds out of there.
  

Then I developed heart pains and a few months ago I went to see a

• Cardiologist in St. Annes, I remember this visit because it happened in June. We got there and did all the necessary tests, he asked had I been seen by a neurologist because all my symptoms tell me that’ who I need to see and we said yes. But you know me and curiosity, I wanted to see the dude again to satisfy that “What If” at the back of my mind. The cardiologist finished his exam and immediately called the neurologist, within 30 minutes I had these sticky things all over my body and the nurse was shocking me and that part of my body would move, it was uncomfortable but also great fun, hahaha, ...........Seriously, as soon as I got used to it I started liking that tingle. Alright I know I’m a weirdo……………………. !!!

When everything was done and we finally got the results, I really believed he was gonna say well Silindile, you has such and such in your body but again he couldn't find the cause of all my problems.

To manage my day-to-day life I go to a General Practitioner when my pains get too much or when I develop feet sores of I have flu or my arm starts doing what it does best. I have a specific GP in every place I live in, II have one I see when with my grandma, another when I'm at my parent's house and another when I'm at Mom Ndu's place.

From the records I saw that I have been tested for poisoning, I tested for lead poisoning but I'm trying to get another test just to see for myself... Another test I'd like to repeat is the MRI but at the moment we can't afford it... The last one is the gastric one because my stomach is really behaving badly, the swelling and deflating, the one day up the next day down and painless is worrying me.

For now I have to switch off the computer and get some rest, I can barely see what I'm writing and I'm really sorry if what I've written makes no sense and is riddled with spelling mistakes.

My prayer these days "Lord please, let the doctors find something wrong with me, it doesn't matter what it is, how small or how big, reveal it because then I can get a chance to be cured"

There's this thing that bugs me from time to time, really it's not really a bad thing but I think I have to mention it her, it's the 13 Going On 30 thing. What am I talking about? Let's break it down and get to the bottom of this thing.

When I got sick there was no warning, no scary drums that you hear on  horror movies when someone is above to enter an old dark abandoned house and Freddy's waiting in there about to strike. There was no unusual tiredness, no  headaches, no dizziness, there was nothing that said "Go see a Doctor idiot, get checked out" So this girl remained blissfully unaware something was wrong with her, till the very last second when I heard the loud banging noise and saw the blood rushing down my top and then, blackout.

Fast forward 6 years later when I look at myself, I'm 25 years old and don't remember what on earth happened  since that March 2004 day and now. I was 19 at the time and I think I was still  a child, not young but you know what I mean.

I'm now 25, it's like I slept and woke up years later, only I was awake, I wasn't in a coma, I just don't remember anything. Between you and me, I sometimes laugh at this thing.

That is how life pulled  a 13 Going On 30 on me.

Am I upset? Sometimes I wish I had made my transition from girl to woman in a normal way, a way I could at least remember later but no I'm not upset. I know whatever made me forget there's a reason for it, maybe if I knew everything that happened I'd be saddened, maybe I wouldn't be where I am today but I do know this - My life is far from over, this battle is far from wrapped up, I will wake up everyday and be a happy fighting 25 year old because yesterday is gone but tomorrow is forever, Dolly  Parton said it best.

Today I decided to write about the not so good, about the hard time I had accepting this and the personal struggle, the anger, shouting whenever I could talk, crying, losing myself and just being angry.

According to my family for over a year after I started living with this we all thought it was a passing thing, we believed I was gonna wake up one day like any normal person. Okay let me tell you how I wake up. As you know I faint all the time and usually get thrown to the ground when the shaking start, so picture this, I'd be fast asleep and start shaking in my sleep till I fall of the bed and land on the sponge they keep next to the bed, I'd keep shaking on the ground banging my head till maybe I'm even off that sponge or against a wall till I stop breathing and they start helping me till I resume breathing. I open my eyes and what do you know, it's morning and I'm already all banged and bruised.

So naturally we believed it was gonna go away one day because all my test results show and have always shown an all clear. Months went on and month after month the belief started fading and I started getting angry. I didn't wanna be touched or comforted, I was angry without ever saying  I'm angry, my faith was fading and I said to my mother "If I had done some big sin, hasn't God punished me enough?" We cried and cried till I fell asleep for a few minutes.

This anger went on for a long time, the feeling of being deserted and at some point I started doubting God's existence...................... But my family's love and patience finally made me calm down, and after a lot of soul searching I finally realized that "hey idiot you're still alive for a reason, stop whining and live your life" and that was the best decision I could have ever made because I'm not ridiculously happy but I am happy. Another thing is do you remember my beautiful stranger poem? Well he came into my life and though it took a long time but I can safely say I credit him for a lot of my progress, he gave me so much but that''s a post for another day.

I started this website so I can talk about how I got here, in I went from one day being a university Bcompt student to waking up in bed unable to move 6yrs later. As you know there's a lot I myself don't know, a lot I can't remember because of the amnesia and this isn't just about writing about how I got here, it's also about finding out along the way from people around me. I'm currently trying to persuade my father to buy me a scanner so I can write the words and post pictures that go with them. My family has been taking pictures since this started but unfortunately almost all of them are printouts and will have to be scanned into the computer........ I'm posting this entry by phone and something tells me it won't look the way I'm writing it, girlfriend here might end up with a post that has no paragraphs, I apologize. Remember we were talking about my coming of age celebration, I'll post the pictures later but I'd like to share what happened with you a little. I'm not feeling so good right now but I promise tomorrow I'll write all about it and from now on I'll write everyday and I'll write more about my illness because I've found out a lot more... I ask too much no wonder they say it's like I swallowed a radio and a tv.

Wow I have had the worst couple of days and it's really disturbing because my family says what I see as the worst is nothing compared to what I can't remember, they're telling me this is usually how the real trouble starts and I can't help but wonder if they're right. Their being right means this is the beginning of what I don't wanna see. So let me start by telling you about my past few days and then I'll go back to the point of this website. As you know it's exam time and that's why I haven't posted anything the last few days, but that's only part of it. You see I've tried studying but each time I even read the first page I get the migraine and if I keep ignoring it I get a nose bleed and before I can really do anything about it my head shocks come back and knock me out cold. What are head shocks? Well it's like this, you know at the very top of my head I get this shock like an electric shock and then my ears start ringing and if someone else places their ear on mine they say they can hear the noise that sounds like someone is busy tearing a piece of cloth inside there. Ok this doesn't make sense but it's really how the noise sounds even to me. I get the migraine and the nose bleed and the head shocks, then I start fainting every 30 minutes or so. I can't wake up without being given extra oxygen because I can't breathe on my own. They give me the oxygen till I cough and wake up, they help me get cleaned up and pick me up from the floor back to my bed and I try to study some more. Not a very good study session wouldn't you agree? The thing is whenever I stop breathing my family worry, when I wake up I also worry because Lord knows why I stop breathing in the first place. It's not a safe life, it's not an easy life but it's my life and I have to live it to the best of my ability. On Wednesday I managed to write Accounting, the university sent an invigilator to supervise my paper and watch while I wrote. It wasn't easy and I couldn't finish. I write very slowly and can barely hold a pen, so I concentrated on questions I knew the answers to and skipped the ones I knew nothing about;). 2 hours later she took the paper and left, I was proud of myself for writing and yes a lot of time got wasted when I fainted twice but I believe I'll get the 50% needed for a pass. Unfortunately I got too sick to write the Friday paper and I won't be able to write today's as well. I haven't given up on the 30th's paper and I'll keep trying to study for it some more. It ain't over till the clouds turn green and as far as I can tell they've never been green;) But I won't deny this, I'm sick and I'm getting worse every hour, I'm losing weight like it's fashionable and I shake like I'm having fits whenever I'm about to stop breathing and faint... I thank God for my family everyday!

For  years I've had a problem with my speech, to be honest my voice has a problem with me, meaning it deserts me when I have no beef with it.. I think I had a nice voice, it wasn't too high or too low BUT I was a very fast talker.  I'd just go "papa di pap pap" and my mom would say I talk like I swallowed the tv and the radio all at once... So you see I was talented, ha ha ha.

But then when I got sick my speech got affected as well. It started slowly and I had this belief that it was a passing thing. I'd think no no no not my speech, take whatever but not that... But you see I wasn't in charge, I wasn't in control, all I could do  was hold on to the belief that one day I was gonna wake up and this would all be over. Months went by and my tongue got tighter, I 'd struggle to move from one word to the next and would struggle to start and finish a word. It seemed to get worse when I had the headaches. As an accounting student let me explain it this way:

I'd get the horrible headache, speech would diminish.

Next time I get that type of headache, speech will diminish once more.

And so on and so on.

It couldn't climb up a level it kept going down.

Till one day I couldn't speak at all, I could only write and that was my only way to communicate, which sucked because talking is my thing, was my thing.

So over the years my speech has come and gone come and gone, but even when it's back I can't sound like my old self, I can barely finish one word and a sentence well you get the picture...... For people unfortunate enough to be talking to me it's frustrating because they struggle to understand. There I am thinking damn I'm nailing this but the next person is busy trying to figure out what I just said.

That was my little speech story. Maybe one day I'll be able to talk like before, maybe I'll be able to hold word conversation but till then, my phone texter is my best friend and I'm good with that..................... Hey who knows, maybe not being able saves me from saying the wrong things and keeps me innocent

By the eve of my 21st birthday party I was ready, my friends were invited and neighbors were asked to help with the dancing. I was very happy because a 21st is a big thing and I was finally turning into a woman Zulu style.

We left my grans house and went to my other grans house (my daddy's mother), we were gonna spend the night there and go back to my other gran the next morning and then the party was gonna start.

• We got there at around 6pm if I'm not mistaken, keep in mind I'm telling this from what Mom Ndu and Mama tell me when we're not laughing at nothing in my bedroom.
• They gave me a bed to sleep on, mom got me ready and after saying our prayers we slept at 10pm and everything looked fine.
• Of course I was fainting and waking up at least 6 times per hours.
• At 2am mom was awake and noticed that it had been nearly 30 minutes since I last shock and fainted, and at first she was happy I finally got 30 minutes of sleep, till she touched me and realized I was barely alive.
• At that point mom says she woke everyone up and they worked on me, seeing that it was too late they called my nurse aunt as they watched me die......... They say by the time she arrived they could hardly feel my pulse and my body looked and felt lifeless.
• Hours later I was awake and my breathing was slowly coming together..................... And as soon as I could write again mom asked me what happened and what you're about to read next is unbelievable, I don't believe it myself but I know they wouldn't lie to me.

This is what I told mom - She looked me straight in the eye and  said , Silindile Ntuli told her the following [ I felt like I was dreaming and in this dream my body was in no pain, I could see my other tortured body but my dream body was unbelievably peaceful. I wasn't fainting, wasn't getting any stabbing pains, wasn't getting my breathing cut off every 5 minutes and I was in peace. So while I'm stannding there this stranger comes and says let's go. Without any questions I follow this stranger and even though I never saw the face I kept following. On our way it started raining heavily and I said I was going home to get my umbrella, I turned back and woke up from my dream.

A priest believes I had a near death experience that day but me, I believe I was dreaming.... Do I believe in near death experiences and all that? Not really, my problem is I question things too much and take them apart piece by piece.

I'd like to tell you about my friends who are simply the best.

OK I should repeat that my friends are the best, they've been in this from day one, they visit me and we laugh like there's no tomorrow. They never changed, they never made assumptions, they never judged, when my illness started they didn't treat me differently, they treated me as the old SK they've always known.

• SK is a nickname this guy friend of mine gave me, it means Street Kid and I got it during my wild days but this post isn't about that, we'll talk about it another time, or not we'll see.

I was talking to another friend of mine the other day and she was telling me of their reactions when they first heard I was ill... As an extremely energetic and hyper person they all first thought my illness news weren't true, then they started thinking it was a passing thing but one of them decided to come see me. When she saw me she was shocked and reduced to tears, what was even harder was watching me shake and vomit every 5 minutes, at first she feared I wasn't gonna wake up, then she started seeing just how serious things were.

A few days later she gathered about 15 of my friends and told them to come see me before I died, like everyone including myself at the time she also believed the only place it was going was 6 feet under...  Yes I was a popular girl with lots of genuine friends......................................... My friends came two days later and I was wheeled to the living room, the minute I saw them I smiled and cried at the same time, it was hard not to because those clowns were already crying so I decided to join the fun, ha ha ha.

We sat and talked, well they talked while I signed and wrote what was really important on  my phone.. And then they gave me the fruits and juice they had brought for me, I didn't wanna disappoint them and I took a sip.

The usual happened, I threw up and had a huge fit attack, it lasted for about 10 minutes and my mouth was foaming by the time I stopped breathing and fainted.

By then the living room was empty, all my friends had ran out, some were hiding behind the house crying, others were in the veranda, others were behind the tree (each one of them is a bigger sissy then the last but I love them). I woke up after a few minutes but had difficulty breathing, seeing how freaked they were made me pretend like I was OK and  after some convincing they came back into the house.

They spent a few hours updating me on the latest developments in their lives and the day was great, being with my friends made me feel normal and I invited them to my 21st birthday party.

The 21st was gonna be divided into two, I was gonna have the traditional celebration which is a Zulu "Coming Of Age" celebration, then we were gonna have the decorations and cake celebration, pity I wasn't gonna actively participate in any part. The Zulu part requires a lot of Zulu dancing and the other part is all about eating and dancing to loud music and drinking and all that, I couldn't do any of that but still I was looking forward to it.

To conclude I'm gonna say I have lots of friends but about 7 best friends, these girls are my insides, they mean so much to me and I love them to bits...... They've made life easier and tolerable, they give me strength and make me feel normal, they're my touchstones and blessings from God.

I need need need to get my pictures into the computer, I wanna start writing about my ceremony and I've seen beautiful pictures in my album that I wanna include, ok now I have to trick daddy into getting me a scanner or something... Last time I checked he couldn't resist my smile and head tilt, hopefully I still have my magic.

See that shell around my neck? You'd never guess how I got it so I'm  gonna tell you...... I had asked to be taken to the beach for a dip, I wanted to feel the water around me and feel the sea breeze. So Mom Ndu, Daddy and my uncle Mdu all took me. We got to Durban and didn't know how to do it, the water was right there in front of us, I was on mom's back and they were scared they'd drown me by mistake. But the water was calling, annd I had been stuck in the house for too long, I needed to do  something to show me I'm still alive.

So mom put a towel on the sand and lay me down, she tested the water (cold as always) and said lets dip her three times, by three I mean they were gonna put me and rest, then put me and rest, then put me and go home (with me of course, ha ha ha).

Mom held my top part, my uncle held  my bottom part and they carried me to the water, I was scared shitless and kept trying to say please don't drop me but remember I was already speechless. We got to the water and they lowered me in, water surrounded me and I cried, but they dippped me again and I got used to it. A few more dips and it was lights out, I fainted and they caried me to the towel, they gave me some air, a lifeguard gave me an oxygen mask and I woke up. We stayed on that towel for a few minutes and of course during those minutes people kept stopping by when I started with the shaking and fainting and throwin up and coughing, which all led to the waking up... One lady even prayed for me.

We tried it again for the second time, this time I didn't cry but I did faint, so embarrassing... On the third try they carried me to the water like the first two, they dipped me and mom put me on her back and went to the car, where she helped me breath and cleaned me up... Oh by the way daddy had ran, he was afraid of sea water and looked from a distance.

When mom was cleaning me up she noticed I was clutching something in my hand, she asked me what was it and I told her I didn't know. After opening my hand we found that shell, it was the most unbelievable thing because there were no visible shells at the beach that day and this was a very very hard shell, it was beautiful and it was in my hand, I didn't remember picking it up, mom didn't know how I ended up with a shell when there weren't any visible ones.... When we got home I took a phone and wrote that I wanted to keep it, my family ended up calling it my gift from the sea. I believed it was my reminder and my hope.

Dad made a hole, put a string and I wore it nicely around my neck, I don't wear it anymore but I still have it in my drawer as a reminder that there is unexpected beauty in this world.

By Begining of 2005 I was a shadow of my former self, I was being taken care of like a newborn baby, I needed round the clock care because when I stopped breathing I couldn't wake up without help, and when I started shaking and fainted without any help they'd  find me wiith foam in my mouth and a faint pulse, eyes turnned up and barely alive. It scared them, it made me more sick, irritated that the medical system was failing us we were stuck in this jam and not liking it at all.

By then my mother and I were running around from my grans house to her house to mom Ndu's house, she was always by my side so she could call someone when the episodes started. Mom would sit next to me in her own wheelchair waiting for the inevitable, when I started shaking she'd try with all her power to prevent me from falling while shouting for someone to come and help, usually my brother who I love very much. I'd stop shaking and be given air, I'd wake up and rest for a few minute and the it'll strike again.

Life was getting harder because I was getting worse, my father seeked all kinds of medicine and answers, he even tried traditional healers because my illness looked strange to say the least. All traditional healers said the same, they said what I had couldn't be helped, they told us I was gonna die and there was nothing they could do for me. With straight faces they told my parents I was a dead girl  just waiting for her heart to stop, they blamed voodoo, insinuated that someone had done this to me and after trying a few  of them we stopped. We figured if they were gonna be the delivers of bad news why go to them to be told the same damn thing.

We focused on western medicine once again, and went to neurosurgeons, neurologists, you name them we tried them but we always, I mean always went home with less money and much more disappointment.

As soon as I had started drinking my tropika juice it was only natural to think things were gonna improve from then, we thought it was gonna be the juice, then maybe porridge and it was just gonna get easiier with every passing hour. So we  kept drinkingand every now and then mom Ndu would but me protein shakes but I'd fail to drink them, they''d but me immune boosts and mineral but one second in the month and out it'd come.... After months of this push and pulll it suddenly dawned on us, this tropika and water was my new diet and I had to embrace it.

Weird when you think about it, here was a girl who was stuck in bed shaking every 5 minutes, she was getting worse but in that fog she found the only thing her stomach could handle - TROPIKA, MY LIFE SAVER, LOL. No no no I'm gratefull, God bless thhe man/woman who mixed it up, I'm 10% sure they didn't know it was gonna end up saving some girl from starvation.

The next year nothing had changed, except my speech was completely gone, I used one hand to try sign language (the other one is clenched remembber), I was becoming quite a great signer with my one hand, and I wrote on my phone a lot...

Keep in mind that I''m a Zulu woman and we have some traditions that we do, in my next posts I will tell you about my coming of age ceremony that was done in efforts to save my life after the illness got worse, keep your eyes glued it'll come very soon.

Also I wanna talk about my 21st and the near death experience I had the day before, which nearly gave Mom Ndu a heart attack and  caused my nose to bleed 14 straight hours while I struggled to stay conscious. The reason I'm not writing  about it now is because I'm still gathering facts and I wanna scan some coming of age ceremony pictures as well. I will  write it in full very very soon.

Let me start this post by saying you probably won't believe it. No I take that back, you WILL not believe it and will think ok this writer is now pulling our legs but I assure you it is true... I also had trouble believing it, I mean come on it just sounds impossible but trust, it is real.

What am I talking about???? Well shortly after the fainting started mama and I moved to grans house because they figured there were lots of people there who could help with this new life of mine. We stayed there and the next weekend Mom Ndu came to help out, give me a bath, clean my room thoroughly, spoil me a little and just make me smile. We were in my room when I signalled for her to help me drink my juice. (Remember at this point I couldn't speak, couldn't eat and could only use one hand, yeah one hand)

She gave me the juice, used the straw as usual but the minute the juice touched my mouth I threw up like nobody's business, all the water I had drank earlier came out till pure blood started coming out my mouth. Mom was worried and tried to give me water but as I drank the water it also came out, more and more..... We stopped tring to drink for a few hours but when we decided to try again same thing happened, not even a single drop of water could go down my throat, not water and certainly not juice.

Days went by, we went to doctors trying to find a solution but we were disappointed at every corner. I grew thinner (which seemed impossible considering I was already skin and bones, guess that skin got thinner if that makes any sense), days went by and mom decided to take me to hospital. We went but because of my fainting problem we went back home....... Weeks went by without anything in my stomach, mom says at some point I told her I wasn't hungry anymore. I told her via message, I'd take my phone and write whatever I wanted to say and give it to them.

A month went by, my room had no food in it anymore, no water but everyday mom would bring a glass and try to see if I can get a rop down but nope, it didn't happen... My family knew it was the end, they all prepared for my death and sometimes I could hear them talking about it, it broke my heart and shattered theirs into a million pieces.

What was fascinating was that each time I had my fits, the shaking was just as powerful and it threw me down and everyone who tried to assist me, I still fainted more than 20 times a dday, still had the powerful shakes and ended up on the floor, still stopped breathing and month after month it got more and more intense. My stomach was empty, my strength was completely gone but this thing was stronger than ever.

One day a then 9 year old child carried me like she was carrying her shoolbag or something, mom cried like a little baby seeing how much I had vanished, I was a dead living person just waiting for that minute where I'd stop breathing permanently.

Then in exactly 83 days, yes this is true 83 days mom (with tears running down her eyes) lifted my head up and put a straw in my mouth, the container was filled with TROPIKA JUICE, MANGO AND PEACH FLAVOUR. I took one sip and swallowed, I took my next, then the next till two days later I finished the 500ml........... God had remembered my address, my stomach was full after being empty for 83 days and 83 nights.

Though that juice ended up being the only thing I could swallow, soon I was able to drink water as well but that was it, nothingt else could go down but believe me everything was tried over and over and over.

This was in November 2004.

The next few days my family was forced to stay with me all day everyday, ok back then they didn't know they were gonna have to do it for years and years to come..... The reason they did that was because my life had become strange, dangerous and dependent... To understand read on.

You see that day when I started shaking was just the begining, from then on I'd shake every 5 or 10 minutes, they say I'd shart shaking uncontrollably tiill I fell off the bed, I'd keep shaking on the floor, banging my body and sometimes even having things fall on me. The shaking itself would last for 6 minutes, give or take. Then when my body went still I'd stop breathing completely. I mean totally stop breathing. At first they'd blow air into my mouth till I started coughing and shake a little bit till I fully awoke, they'd pick me up and put me to bed.... 5 - 10 minutes later the whhole thing will start again, the shaking, then fainting, not breathing, the air boost, the picking up. This process went on and on for years (you will hear full details of how it got as time went on)

Then they started using  something to give me extra oxygen whenever my episodes happened. As you can imagine I never slept, I stll don't sleep and this is taking it's toll.

Slowly this life became my life, I hated it but I had no choice. Doctors said what I had wasn't epilepsy, they tested  for it but all said my condition was definately not epilepsy... Again I was forced to sit at home sick as a dog without so much as a painkiller.

Alright time to tell you what happened to me, no more taking too long to get to the facts... Before I do I must highlight that we still haven't found the cause and at this point I'm preparing to live this life as best I can. It ain't a fun life, it ain't good but when life hands you lemons you make lemonade right??? I never liked that saying, in fact I think it's stupid. When life hands me lemons, I punch Ike in the face and then ask Bob for my original orange order, lemons are just too damn sour. That's just me annd my twisted little mind, welcome to the Silindile Show... Eminem step aside...

One day mom and I were in the car, dad was driving to (ok I don't know when we were going), I was sleeping at the back seat and mom said I started shaking uncontrollably like I was having a fit, this was in August, 5 months after the taxi rank incident. I kept on shaking till my father stopped the car and went to check up on me, he says when he opened the door he tried to hold me still but the force of my body threw him down flat on him bum... Oh God I just  said the words Bum And Dad in one sentence, talk about pending trauma. He says he got up and noticed that my eyes had rolled back, my mouth was foaming and I was still shaking, that shaking looked a lot like an epileptic attack and lasted for over 10 minutes.

When it passed dad says he touched me so he could put me back on the sit but noticed that I had stopped breathing, he panicked and tried to wake me up but it was no use, my body was getting cold and he knew I was gone. He told mom and she lost it to put it mildly, started praying and shouting at me all at once, she was mad at me and wanted me to come back, she wasn't ready to lose her daughter and turns out the daughter wasn't ready to leave her.

They drove back to my gran's house, dad parked the car and wondered off, confused and filled with rage. I say rage because he was pissed his daughter had been killed by an illness he couldn't even identify. So everyone started crying and fortunately one of them decided to cry right in my face, she cried and shaked me, screaming  and all that. Then she noticed I still had a faint pulse,  she told everyone and they gave me some air and got professional help, I woke up but sadly my speech was completely gone.

I was alive and that's what counted.

The tests had only just begun and me, well mom says I did them willingly at first but at some point I reached a point where I felt like a lab frog awaiting the inevitable, I felt like II was being studied and each time we went to hospital and came hoome with no answer I slowly sank into depression.

We spent a few weeks at home, I kept getting worse till I was nothing but skin and bones, I looked like somebody else and by then I couldn't speak at all. Doctors suggested testing my head because they suspected something like a tumor, I freaked out because it's something nobody wants to believe might be the possibility, I was also happy. Ok I know this sounds weird but let me explain, I was happy because I thought maybe the answer did lie in the cat scans and what not.

Monday came. my uncle, brother and gran took me to the hospital to have the tests, gran says when she saw me on the machine she found herself feeling like she had lost me, like I was gonna go in and come out dead... She's old fashioned...

The testing went smoothly but again  the problem couldn't be identified.

Long faced and tired, we went home

The first few nights with my parents were fine, my mom stayed with me when dad was at work, I couldn't walk by then and dad woould carry me to the living room before he left, I'd sit all day watching tv and mom would be close by, I had already lost a lot of weight, I could barely eat and my two main problems were the headaches and stomach aches. I thought well this will be over soon and payed no attention to it................................ Littlle did I know lots of crazy shit was about to go down.

Keep in mind that it had only been a month since the nose bleeding day but already I couldn't walk......

Then one day mom and I are sitting in the living room, dad is in the bedroom going over some work stuff and the day is going pretty good, we're making conversation and mom tells me while we were talking I told her something was crawling down my arm, I lifted it up and saw blood splashing out my elbow, kinda like when you take something pointy and pierce a water pipe and water comes splashing out, but no one had stabbed or even touched me, I just freaked out and shouted for my dad who came running to see what was the problem, I showed him my arm and he tried to help me but the blood kept coming out even worse than before... My dad's car was being fixed at the time and he had no way of taking me to the doctor, but I was losing blood too quickly he had to act.

You've seen the woman in my videos, that's my mom;s sister she lives about 60km from where we live, dad called her and asked her to hurry because something wasn't right (Ok I will call her Mom Ndu because that is what I call her everyday) Mom Ndu rushed to our house, getting a speeding ticket in the process, gotta love that woman.

They took me to the car and we went to the doctor, he looked at me and tried to figure out the cause, he was as confused as we were because he couldn't find a logical explanation, he then wrapped my arm up and gave me some tablets that were aimed at clotting the blood, something like that.

Hey don't blame me for not having the proper terms here, I have amnesia remember... Anyhoo, we went home and mom Ndu stayed the night, my arm kept bleeding for four days and that is when my family started realising that whatever was going on was more serious than just a stomach ache and a head ache....... It gets worse, much much worse.

So I started the questioning, the more I asked was the more worried my family looked, they gave me answers like "you should focus on your recovery and forget the past, what they didn't realise was that I wanted to know the past, I couldn't just accept that I woke up 6 yrs later very sick and not remembering a thing, I needed answers.... My family started by giving me the basics, they told me that after the nose bleeding day I had slept for the whole day and when I woke up I complained of a pounding headache, but thought it was nothing serious. The next day I had difficulty walking, I fell a lot and ended up taking my mom's old cane (my mom is also paralysed, she used a cane back then but now she is fully paralysed and she is sick)

I went to the doctor that day, he gave me an injection, some pain killers and said I had a passing headache. I went home and straight to bed. My family tells me that within a few days walking got more and more difficult, I started complaining of a stomach ache and lost weight, I started going from doctor to doctor, all saying I had normal fever and all that. I ditched the general practitioners and started seeing specialist but even they couldn't see the problem. My family was running around like nobody's business at this point, they could see something was wrong but all the tests came back clean, there wasn't much anyone could do, I kept on taking the pills given to me and in less than a month I could barely walk.

I was still registered at university and wanted to go write my test, my father and mother took me to the school that evening, they helped me to my desk and waited while I wrote, you see I believed my sickness was gonna pass and I didn't want it to mess with my studies, I was determined to be the best CA the world had ever seen, those dreams are still very much alive in me.

My parents then decided to take me from my gran's house to their own, wanting to keep a closer eye and nurse me to health, little did they know that was just the beginning of what those who were in my life the past 6 years have described as the most hurtful and horrific thing they had ever seen.......... Stay tuned to find out more and feel free to join my site.