Soul Dose

I have a new page that I'm fond of , the Friends Say... page, please check it out.

So today I woke up with my nephew next to me and I love that little guy so much I smiled with happiness, till 5 minutes later I started vomiting blood, pure blood with some water and my stomach soon join in the circus and gave me some problems. I knew then my appointment with the eye doctor was down the drain so I did what anyone would've done.

I got cleaned up, drank some water and listened to my nephew talk nonstop while pretending the pain was gone. He talked about the songs he knows, counting them and he found out he knows 26 songs and I found out I love him so much I listened to that for nearly two hours with a smile on my face, a hand on my stomach and an little nod here and there.

Right now I'm in bed waiting for Mom Ndu, she'll give me a bath and then I can try to sleep but since I have a bad case of insomnia I'll sleep for less than two hours.

The key to keeping my nephew quiet during those hours is to put all HOME ALONE movies in my laptop, make him sit down and watch, the downside is when he laughs the neighbors hear.

As for me I'm in a lot of pain, still wishing I could go seek help in America or Europe, I'm vomiting blood every now and then today, my shaking is extreme, I'm bruised all over because there isn't a wall I haven't gotten thrown at, I have a migraine and a swollen stomach.

That's all for now.

I'm smiling and believing, let's smile together and one day the whole world will smile and  believe, it starts with you.

                        Cheers And Stay Beautiful

(Oh I'm on a campaign to get Purplehatter to create something specific for me but I can't comment on his blog.)

Morning Everyone, due to Silindile Ntuli's illness taking a severe turn overnight Souldose will be put on hold for a while. She's a strong girl I'm sure she'll bounce back. In the meantime we might run a few personal messages she was asking her friends and family to write for the site but without her it won't be a bubbly and inspirational place only she made it to be. Get well soon Slindy, you're loved.

Hello Good People, long time no typing I know but wow I've had some very hard days and I'm still buried head deep in them wondering when I'll be able to get my head out of the mud and inhale some fresh and not to mention refreshing air.............. My daily life has gotten a lot worse and now to put a cherry on top I might be going blind. What is she talking about you wonder? My friends let me tell you about my last few weeks, pardon me if I don't write it all on this post, once my eyes get tired I have to close them and then rest them under my big dark shades, Ha ha ha.

So anyways I was minding my own business in my bed when it happened, I looked down and saw I was covered in blood and not just blood, clots even, it was from my nose. I calmly took my tapper and banged the night stand so gran could come help me out (That's how I call for help since speaking is a thing of the past for me). Gran came and that's the last thing I saw...... I woke up a few hours later with a killer headache and a spinning head, my stomach looked like I was pregnant with triplets and the clicking irritation sound in my ears was maybe 5 times louder, I was not doing good and pissed off about it, especially since it was Christmas time.

After a visit to the doctor I slept, only to get worse with every hour. I fell from my bed more times than I've ever fell before and my shakes are now so constant and so severe they yank me and bang me like a rag doll, I have no energy, even my skin hurts.... And my eyes well my friends my eyes are now beginning to fail all together. They've troubled me for years and the flashy thing developed in November I think but now I can barely see, spectacles do little and mine are broken at the moment, lol.

I can still see a little and I have some good hours like right now, so I grabbed this opportunity to blog and visit other blogs, wow I can't wait.

The bad news is my grandmother who also happens to be the person looking after me is very very sick, her blood pressure is 183, her heartbeat is faint, her face is swollen, her lungs are drowning in water (whatever that means) so she was told to sleep and take it easy or she'll have a heart attack or stroke. She's the rock of this family and when she's sick it shakes us all but I believe she'll recover after enough rest and medication, luckily so does she.

BUT life hasn't been all doom and gloom, there have been some good things... Christmas for my family was good, though for me it wasn't a good day.. On New Year's they had lots of fun screaming and doing firecrackers and braaing meat it was good.

As for Mr Man we are getting even closer, I thought people couldn't get any more closer than we already were but I've been proved wrong... The question of whether or not we're together is one I get more often than how are you doing today and those who never ask the question claim to know we're together and have been since the 90s................ But to answer it honestly I'm not sure where we stand, what I''m sure of is I enjoy every second with him.

That's all for today, I hope to get a chance to blog again tomorrow.

I hope you all entered this year with a bang and I wish you only the best for the rest of it and all the other years after this one, may all your dreams and wishes come true.

                                                     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!!!

I’ve wanted to write this post for some time but always got sidetracked to had such a bad day the laptop stayed far away, yeah those days are usually filled with a lot of vomiting and so much shaking and getting thrown off the bed  I protect my laptop by keeping it at a distance…. I love it too  much and I’ll tell you my laptop story after this one, after reading it you will agree I’m truly God’s favorite child.

What happens in my day? What do I eat? What do I drink? What medication  do I use? This post is about that, please don’t feel sorry for me after reading it, I’m fine, I’m okay and am making peace with things on a daily basis. It’s not an easy journey but like every card it has too be played and I’m playing it. I have the best support system that keeps growing each day. I write here and gain supportive people who are so kind and amazing… I’m thankful and grateful.

What Happens In My Day?

I cough and cough and shake till I calm down and realize oh wow I’m not on my bed I’m on the floor. Someone helps me back to the bed, they help me raise my pillows and stack them, they put towels at the bottom to support my back and them put little old me. Then I get my ice packs changed, I get my hot pressure bottle changed (I use it to keep a part of my stomach pressed and hot, otherwise you don’t wanna know), I stay in bed, maybe watch TV, maybe open the laptop or whatever comes to mind. Then few minutes later I start gasping for air, I gasp and gasp, then I get this head shock thing, I start shaking and maybe even foaming in the mouth and all this is happening while I’m conscious.

I keep shaking and getting hit square in the face by my out of control knee till maybe I fall off the bed and stop breathing all together, or I stop breathing while still on the bed…. After that I hear and see nothing, I feel nothing till I’m helped with oxygen and resume breathing again. Hat I do know is I start coughing and coughing till I start hearing and feeling pain, I feel this burning sensation in my chest and my head feels like it’s ready to explode. I wake up and they help straighten me back into my bed, when I take a few minutes to fully focus.

I make a few lousy jokes just to show them I’m fine, they go back to whatever they were doing and minutes later, maybe 30 minutes later it hits me again, other times it’s so bad I get blood in my mouth and other times my nose starts bleeding, but other times it isn’t so bad, I only shake and faint. This is a daily struggle and goes on non-stop till the next day and the next day and so on. My family take turns because there’s no way my not being able to sleep will keep everyone from sleeping.

What Do I Eat?/ What Do I Eat?

This is an excellent question, what do I eat? The answer is nothing. I’m sure you don’t buy that and believe me when I first woke up I didn’t buy it either and I’ve spent months trying to eat everything I can get my hands on, trying to drink every supplement but I can’t, I simply can’t……. How did this start? Well when I first got ill and it was getting serious I could eat, then it started the vomiting. I’d eat maybe porridge and wouldn’t be able to swallow it, nothing would go down my throat and at some point even water refused. It became a matter of “One second in the mouth and I’d start gagging like there was no tomorrow”. My family tells me there was a time where I went without anything in my stomach for 80 days or so, nothing at all would even go down and my nurse aunt decided to help me by giving my the hospital drips, or I believe they’re called I V’s in other countries.

She’s put me on  it maybe once a week till one day Mom Ndu tried to give me water like she had done everyday and on that day I was able to swallow. Then we started trying medication, pills, food and soft foods but still nothing, only water would go down in very small quantities and then after over a year II was able to  drink Tropika juice, the mango and peach flavor….. It’s been years and even though I still try daily I’m still not able to swallow anything except water and that juice.

What Medication Do I Take?

First we’ve tried supplements so I can have energy and stuff, we’ve tried vitamins and tried pain killers but I can’t take anything. This is the hardest thing  about  my life, daily being in agony and not being able to take even a pain killer. I can’t swallow these thing or anything else and when something tries to go down my throat I start vomiting and I don’t stop till I vomit blood or pass out… And the process isn’t a walk in the park, it is painful and exhausting, it leaves me feeling tired and in a lot of pain for hours.

My beautiful stranger introduced me to codeine phosphate and though I try to take it I still throw up.. I try to mix things in my juice but throw up, I try to crush pills but again throw up.

I know this might sound untrue but we have really tried it all, we’ve tried our best and it kills me when I hear my mother says something like “I wish I could absorb your illness and be the one suffering so you can have a normal life and go to school and work like people your age” or saying something like “If I were asked to die so you could get your life back I’d do it In an instant”

Things That Have Changed.

I used to be fine with smells, I have no problems but a few years ago I started getting negatively affected by them. An Example: If someone sprayed perfume in the house I start vomiting, if I’m out of the house and smell cigarette smoke I vomit and faint. Hospital smells are hard on me, body lotion smells, and for the big one, I can’t stand the smell of food so much that my family has started cooking in the outside room. If I smell food being cooked I gasp for air and vomit and end up with a nosebleed flat on the floor unable to breath…………… I know this sounds hard to believe but it’s all true…………. Any kind of smell is a no no for me and that makes life very hard on everyone around me. I hate this because it doesn’t only inconvenience me but all those around me and I feel guilty and I feel really bad.

This post was made because this is how I live, this is what my life has become and not writing this post would’ve meant not being entirely honest. I want this journey to be as open and as honest as possible.

I'm tired, I'm so tired and I feel like a thousand bulls were playing tag on my body and running around on it

But I'm just glad my phone allowed me to post today, I wrote the first few words and saved, what do you know it worked. So now I'm back to write what's been going on inside my brain

I hate feeling like this, being too sick to even spend time with people but there's nothing I can do. I have this guy friend and he's the one person outside my family who has been by my side from day one, he's a true angel and my very own hero and if I talked about him I'd have to make his own post because he's one hell of a friend.. Anyways I asked him 'Do you think I'll ever fully recover and his answer was 'Sure Of course yes' or something like that and it made me think.

Here was this person looking at me, seeing the pain I was in yet his belief was unchanged, maybe if you're in my situation you need people like him around you, people who will not see a sick person in front of them but people who'll always see a recovering person.

I've had some very unpleasant couple of days and I'm still in the middle of unpleasantness (That's not a word is it?) But what I love about my people is that they never feel sorry for me or treat me like an invalid, yes they look after me but to them I'm just Silindile or Sli as I'm called. They see how ill I am but because I handle it they also handle it, together we kick this illnesses butt and will keep doing it...... I hope I can remember how I did this post on this phone, maybe I'll post daily if I do.

As for my update here it is: The headache is normalizing back to what it's always like.. The nose bleeds are under control.. My leg spasms haven't been smacking me square in the face for the past two days and it's a relief, I hate being hit by my knee in the middle of my face but now that I write it down it's funny.. I'm able to drink water again after a 2 week difficulty.. I saw a doctor about the flashy thing in my eyes and he'll be giving me new glasses.. I made an EEG appointment but had to cancel when I heard how expensive it is, will make it again after my father gets his December work bonus. I feel guilty taking his bonus I really do.. I've spoken to my doctor about getting more allergy tests and he said he'll try to get in touch with Aurora Hospital, apparently they're the best and I googled them...... That's my update, hopefully I'll be feeling even better tomorrow and might come back to the website and maybe even chat.

Thank you so much for your support and kind words, I read them and my heart smiles because they're so sweet and I feel even more blessed. Thank you all very very much.

Usually I get help writing and posting here, those times are my not so great days kinda like these days, but today my cousin helped me set up and I’m doing the posting.

Truth is these days I’m not doing good, not doing good at all. This damn stupid illness decided to tighten it’s bite and sting a little more than it’s been stinging these last couple of weeks………….. I wanted to write about my typical day, I even got my trusted sidekick (My nephew) to take a few pictures and surprisingly the little man takes fantastic pictures, look  out Annie Leibovitz that’s all I’m gonna say… But that post will have to wait a little till I feel better and can type real posts.

I don’t know how long I’ll be feeling like this but I pray it won’t be too long because it really isn’t cool to feel like this, being too sick to even spend time with my loved ones.

I’m gonna miss you guys, this site has been very helpful to me and I’ve met amazing people. You’ve become not only helpful with your great advise, you’ve also become my friends and that’s very special to me.

I’ll see you when I feel better, this will be over quicker than you can say what? Knife of course.

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"

I’ve wanted to write a new post since yesterday, I tried to write a new post 4 times since yesterday but my health these days not only made it hard, my eyes made it worse. So what’s going on?  

It’s no big deal, I have been feeling weaker and weaker, then of course I started swelling up. I hate it when that happens because I know it means I have a hard time and it just started. My face is looking a little funny really, all swollen and ugly but my stomach is even funnier. Whenever my nephew sees it like this he walks in and pats it while the words “you’re having a baby too mom” roll out of his mouth. I laugh and sometimes I nod my head just to humour him and boy does he get excited. That kid is a big ball of sweet.

Yesterday I saw a doctor, not one of the doctors I usually see but a new one this time. I figured  adding one more cannot do any harm. I took all my records and when we got to his rooms we couldn’t get in, they are upstairs and you have to climb long stairs to reach him. There’s no lift, so we sat and tried to map out our plan but the only thing that seemed logical was to turn and go see another doctor……. As we were getting ready to leave the person who was with me decided to go talk to the doctor, and within 5 minutes the doctor and his nurse came to see me in  the car. I wasn’t sold on the idea but the pains in my body were screaming “at least get an injection and go to bed.”

When the doctor started flipping though my records and doing a lot of nodding. I closed my eyes and prayed he finds a test we haven’t taken or notices something out of the ordinary, I prayed for him to pick up something other doctors missed and when he made notes I thought yes he found something, but I was wrong.

He suggested I get lifted into his rooms while my wheelchair followed, it was hard on the person who did the lifting but I‘m thankful…… The examination was the  usual and even though I was and am still swollen, even though my stomach looks dark and big, even though my head is pounding and my eyes can barely see, his results came back as clean as all my results always come back and I put my hand on my eyes  and hid my tears once again……………………….. I’m asking and was asking for an answer, a miracle, a little red flag to follow up on but again was given clean results. Maybe this will sound silly but I’d prefer to know I have this and this, at this point I’d take whatever I can get.

Then something totally new happened, I’ll post about it tomorrow because I’m  not doing so good right now.

Stay Beautiful………..Cheers

Last night was not a good night for me, I had a lot on my mind and pains on my body, not a good combination. I couldn't sleep till shortly after 3am and when I started feeling  sleepy I did  a little mental victory dance as I closed my eyes and drifted off to the land of sweet dreams (some funny, others scary, others weird... I enjoy weird ones).

I woke up soon after and saw that not only was on the floor but I was also wet. My brother was standing over me blowing air in my direction with a chopping board, mom was talking to dad on the phone, my sister who works nights this week was still at work, my gran was in the corner praying and II was on the floor thinking why am I wet...... He helped me till I was feeling okay, then he went to sit in the living room while gran helped e change my wet clothes. When we were done my brother picked me up and put me back to the bed and went to his room to go back to his own sweet dream land.

My cold packs needed to be change and my good hearted gran went to the kitchen to get new ones while mom told dad all was okay so he could get his own sleep. Let me tell you about the cold packs: As you know my left side is the most affected side and in the case of my leg it's really frustrating. It's like it's burning, the feeling deep inside feels like it's on fire and it is SO painful I hate it. The doctor checked and checked what could be causing it but we found nothing, I couldn't sleep at all and the leg was swelling up and needed to be cooled down, so we were given these cold/ice packs that we keep in the freezer and I take two, wrap them in  a thin towel to avoid frost bites and place them under my leg right in the knee area. I place a pillow first, then the Ice pack and then my legs, or rather the left leg on the pack, the right leg is a lot better. I keep the burning feeling controlled like thhat. It doesn't go away but it gets a lot better and I have been using this thing all day everyday since 2005.

After the packs were changed gran came back to tell me why I woke up wet. She said I had fallen asleep and next thing she saw me shaking uncontrollably and then got thrown off the bed and on to the floor where I continued shaking violently till she called my brother. He did what they always do but realized my pulse was barely there, I was foaming in the mouth by the time he got in my room and soon stopped breathing. He tried to wake me up, splashed water on me, gave me extra air and CPR till I started breathing again, that's when I soon opened my eyes and saw I was wet. It took some time to get me to  normal before he put me back to the bed.

When I heard all this I cried, I couldn't imagine how it's like for them to watch me stop breathing in front of their eyes, I also cried because it's a terrible thing that keeps happening to me and it's painful. I pray everyday for an answer, a little light. I thank God my gran was there when it happened and woke up my brother, I thank God for all of them.

Tonight my prayer is simply "Lord help me through this journey, show someone an answer, amen"

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.

This journey I'm on is hard, it is very hard and there are a lot of down and too few ups, I get thrown down and sometimes get my hopes up only to come crashing down and breaking the ground that's under me.

I have the faith, an open heart, the desire, if I were looking for a man they'd refer to this as "She's out there, totally out there".  What I'm trying to say is these past few days I've been getting worse, first it prevented me from finishing my exams, then I thought no I can still try on  the 30th but no, I'm getting worse.

My problem is not the illness part, I'm used to that part now but the one part I hate is not being able to talk to my nephew, he comes into my room, hugs me and put his head on my tummy, he talks and asks his million questions but all I do is smile. I can't even write to the kid, he's 6 and can only read one words at this point.

That's him, just look at this face..................... Ah he makes everyday worth it.

I'm disappointed because I was doing a lot better. I felt it though, I started feeling dizzy and then the swelling up of the legs, the vomiting, the swelling up of my tummy, the shaking, all those things were saying "Hey you" and I paid attention, but without the proper diagnosis all  the attention paying isn't accurate.

Today may be hard, tomorrow may be dark, but one day the light will shine so bright it will blind my eyes... In a good way

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!

These days haven't been kind to me, I'm very sick, I'm nose bleeding a lot and I'm swollen like a cake baking in the oven (not those burnt crusty ugly can't be eaten cakes, I look like the sponge cake... Hey I have to be kind to myself). I don't like feeling like this or looking like this, truly on these days I find myself thinking a lot and I know too much thinking is never good.

I started thinking about the things I've missed out on and that reminder me of "THE PLAN", I had a plan you know, when I was in high school I made a life plan, I drew it up and was set on following down to the last detail. Maybe I was naive, maybe I was bored but at the time my list looked like a great idea but life had other plans for me.

I didn't put down things like BE THE FIRST SOUTH AFRICAN WOMAN PRESIDENT or FLY TO THE MOON, those weren't my ambitions, mine were a little lower and much less extreme but they were mine and I couldn't do them.... OK let's take a look at them.

- I wanted to be a CA when I turned 24 yrs old (I'm now 25, guess that goal is gone for good)

- I wanted to be married by now with 2 kids (this one wasn't really up to me but it was on the list)

- I wanted to buy my parents a house last year (another one down the drain)

- I wanted to work for Deloitte (Ah I think I'm gonna cry)

- I wanted to drive a Z3 (It was hot back then, what's hot nowadays?)

Maybe I should make a new plan, a realistic but still great plan and hopefully this time it won't sail away on a paper boat while I stand on the shore waving bye bye with a sad look on my face.... A new plan is a must and I'm gonna start working on it.

I have exams starting on the 28th October, hopefully I'll feel good enough to start sturdying soon.

Cheers!!!