Soul Dose

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!!!