My stay in Mbabane Private Hospital. 

I went to the doctor as stated  in last blog and then spent 5 days in hospital.

The short story is I had an outbreak of shingles in my mouth, together with bronchitis and if that wasn’t enough I fell and landed on my tail bone.  I can no longer wag my tail.  In fact I cannot do much of anything that means moving lower limbs.

I have a nice rocking chair at my house  – well padded – have no idea how I became the owner of it – but I am so pleased that it lives at my house.  It is my sanctuary and my saviour.  I can sit and rock myself off to sleep or off the planet if I try really hard.

Being in hospital in Swaziland is an experience – that I am not going to repeat.   Because I couldn’t eat or drink I was put on a drip -   it was supposed to be .9% sodium.   I didn’t see the ‘point’ in front of the 9 and even after 2 days everything was like raw salt.  I could taste and smell it and I was continuously nauseated.  My blood pressure kept rising and the staff thought I was lying when I said I am not hypertensive !!!!!

Teresa was at the bedside as much as she could manage encouraging me to eat and keeping  a watchful eye  on everything – she is a nurse.  (Thank God)   The kitchen does not have a dietician and have no idea of pureed foods and ‘NO ADDED SALT’.

I have had blood taken from every extremity now.  Both and hands and feet.  My veins have atrophied with the salt and the only place they could get blood was the back of my hands or on top of my foot.  They are still well coloured with little haematomas.

By day 5 I had done a deal with the doctor – if I could swallow my pills I could go home next day.  Up to this time all medication was being fed into the drip.  Even if I chocked, I was going home.   So on Saturday they started giving me oral medication.   I DID IT !!!

In the early hours of Sunday my drip was almost completed.  I alerted one of the staff who ignored this information.  2 hours later and too scared to sleep in case it ran out and I ended up with a vein full of air bubbles, I mentioned it again.    Still no response.  So I turned it off.   Another 2 hours later still no response -  so I removed the drip line.   It  was not noticed for another 3 hours.   Once a nurse always a nurse !!!! I couldn’t help myself.

Teresa tells me that I gave her a hard time in the first few days -  I don’t recall -  I was out to it with medication and salt.  But I am so pleased that she was watching over me in case.  In her words she would have taken me out of there and driven to South Africa if necessary.  Since I’ve been in and out of there -  The Private Hospital -  I have heard all the horror stories so I am staying well now for the next 18 months.

The doctor was actually nice to me when I left hospital.   Don’t know why !!!!!  we obviously had a mutual dislike of each other.

on discharge i was not recognizable even to myself.

the salt had made my face, hands and feet so fat, that i was sure i had a transplant during my sleepy sickness.   after a few days of total water flushes the swelling had reduced and i could see myself again.

When I was discharged, Allyson Berriero – who I had gone to Kruger with some time ago – would not let me go home to be on my own.  So I stayed at her place until she was happy that I was eating properly.  She has 2 maids and they doted on me while Allyson was at work.  They would not let me move without checking to see what I was doing -  I was allowed up for toilet reasons only. They brewed up some really tasty broths  that I ate heartedly and I think they were  under strict instructions from Allyson to feed me, feed me, feed me.  I had 3 days of this caring and then just had to go home.  It was time to be my own person again !!!

My employer, Teresa, was able to make contact with Malcolm during this time as my phone didn’t work in the hospital and even if it did I don’t think I would have been able to operate it. 

Malcolm tried to tell Teresa that I will do anything to regain my independence.   She didn’t really take him seriously until she experienced it for herself how far I will go.  We can have some good laughs now about it.  I had lunch with Teresa and her friends Monica and Robin on Friday and it was good therapy for them, they got lots of laughs and I learnt a bit more about myself.   Some worts are not so good, but I’m blaming the salt.

So while all this has been going on I hope the ladies have been behaving themselves. Of course I feel bad because they haven’t had any jobs to go on with without me.  I am not allowed back to the bush until the following week, Monday 25^th March. This week I am working from home,  I have some shopping to do and some serious cutting out  in prep for the next few weeks. 

One of the biggest tragedies of this for me was that I couldn’t go the opening of the “Women’s Voices” exhibition.  Not sure if I mentioned it before -   the gallery  YEBO was commissioned through US AID program to provide an art reach program for 20 women.  They were all Swazies with stories.  For 6 weeks they lived in Mon – Fri and did all manner of artistic pursuits -  including drama, poetry, pottery, screen printing, drawing, painting, song and dance. They constructed their own song that was released on 14^th Feb on Youtube 1 billion rising.  It was a very powerful time for them and the outcome is amazing.   The opening address was on 8^th March – International Women’s Day.  Their works will be exhibited at 2 other locations in Swaziland, but not with the full address of poetry readings and the songs. 

I  think that’s it for blog 14.  The shortest in history from me.

Take good care of yourselves and each other,

Much love from Ezulwini and me,

Georgie.   xxx