My September visit to the hospital

Posted on 11 September 2015 –

I have been so busy that I have not been able to do much on my blog for a while, so I’m making the most of a space in time to tell you about my visit to the government hospital on Monday 7th.

Well, I was in and out there quicker than usual this time, which was such a blessing.  Everyone knows how uncomfortable my visits there make me!  My heart breaks for everyone who has to go there, even the medical staff!  I’m praying that eventually my blog will bring in enough revenue so that my son and I can afford a medical aid and get proper, safer, kinder, more reliable and more humane treatment.  This is why I’m working hard to get as much support for my blog as possible. 

If you are reading this, please help wherever you can.  I need as many people as possible to “Subscribe” to my blog, “Like” on my Facebook and “Follow” on Twitter links.

Just a year or two when we moved to the town we now live in and I lost contact with the person who used to very kindly supply me with my blood pressure and diuretic pills, I was forced to go to our local government hospital for treatment.  Around then, I believe, due to the extreme stress and trauma of moving out of my “comfort zone” home of 30 years and having to deal with “The Hoarding Monster” there in order to do so, I also developed type 2 diabetes and very painful gout episodes.  I have never been properly treated or seen anyone for the diabetes and had one test that proved the high uric acid levels and gout.  The tablets I was given for the gout made my liver swell and hurt so much, so I decided as with the diabetes, to control both conditions with diet alone and give up the hope that the hospital would be able to help me! 

All my life, as a result of the abuses I suffered as a child and further abuses in my adulthood, I was a compulsive eater... I just ate and ate and ate always trying to fill that broken place inside of me!  I even knew that my eating was to the point of being suicidal, but that did not stop me from eating even more!

Around the time I developed both conditions, I weighted around 121kilograms!  My body (and mind) was very ill as I suffered with sore and swollen liver all the time, water retention and migraine headaches to go with that, the constant development of boils and abscesses, heavy heart palpitations, racing heartbeat, high blood pressure, etc. and I knew that I would probably not last long the way my health was deteriorating day by day.   

A few months before I even knew I had diabetes or gout, a very dear friend, Cheryl was training to be a homeopath at the time, and asked if I would be one of her study patients.  To this day, I believe that it was her tender, loving care and attention that helped to pull me through the trauma of my move along with my Facebook friends, my children, a young lady named Saiesha who helped me with packing and dealing with “The Hoarding Monster” (which I might tell you about that time someday) and a rare few others who stood by me during those awful days!

Having people care that much about me during one of the hardest times of my life and around when I found out about the diabetes and later gout, caused something amazing to happen in my mind... a switched turned on as I for the first time in my life, chose “LIFE over death!” 

Overnight, for each condition, I realised that if I did not change my diet drastically and immediately to accommodate and improve my health, I would die... and just like that... I did what was necessary and saved my own life as a result.  I have since lost around 30kilograms and don’t remember ever feeling this healthy!  I have cut my blood pressure and water pills down to an 1/8 twice a day of what I used to take... I very rarely ever experience heart palpitations, and now have to watch out for low blood pressure instead!  I could say that my health is probably 80% better than it ever was before I changed my diet!  Now I need to do something about my poor exercise mind-set (agoraphobia doesn’t help) I would LOVE to have a walking partner or a gym contract and trainer to help me get there.  I seem to be working all the time and that involves hours and hours of sitting... NOT GOOD – NO EXCUSES – I KNOW!!!  AAARGH!!! 

Ok... I’m getting side-tracked... back to why I want to tell you about my hospital visit this week.  When I first came to this town and was forced to go to that hospital for my medicines, I used to arrive there with my son... (I could NEVER go alone to a place that scared me that much!!!)... and I would always end up crying with fear within the first few minute of arriving there... genuine raw fear... Patty’s fear.  Gradually, overtime, as I got used to visiting the place once a month, I at least stopped the crying, and the anxiety of just being there has become a lot less.

Anyway, this last week whilst I was waiting with all the others in the crowded waiting room, a man finally came through with a huge pile of files as always.  So many people waiting ages just to be called for the file so that we could pay or R20 and then go to the dispensary to get our meds.  I heard my name... pronounced correctly for the first time ever there and I went to stand in my place in the queue. 

Due to so many people being called and very little room, we were all very cramped together.  An old man came and stood right up against my side, trapping me against a wall with a woman pushed up in front of me and someone else close enough to be touching my back.  For a moment I felt the age old claustrophobia a panic rising.  I honestly felt the man was too close... wondered why... believed it was deliberate... he had plenty space to move away a little... why did he feel the need to be practically leaning on me! 

I turned to look at him... something I would NEVER have done before... instead I would have been triggered into the victimised state of my past abuses and would have had a full blown panic attack, quickly ending in a bucket of tears.  But something strange happened this time... when I looked at him, I saw a very frail old man and for some reason, instead of “going there” to the old age abuse stories that were long ago etched in my mind by the cruelty of others, I saw this tiny, frail old man, leaning on me for support, also feeling lost in the commotion, as a sea of people came up to take their places, equally squashed together in the queue.

A sudden surge of compassion poured over me for this dear old man.  I found myself humming a calming hymn so that in my own way, I could bring comfort to him.  Soon, when he saw a space on the seats next to the queue, he went to sit down asking the lady behind him in his own language, to keep his place in the queue. 

I felt nothing but love in that moment in time and I could breathe as a result.  Where did the panic go?  All those years of tears and panic... such wasted emotions that didn’t need to be so in control of “me”!  If only I knew all of this about my true self and strengths before.   I have been so pushed down by the limiting beliefs that I had carried with me for so many years from my past... if only I knew before... What a different life of personal freedom, peace and joy I could have had!

I always had so much love to give and I did give a lot, but so much of it was trapped with Patty as a result of her fears.  My experience on Monday has shown me that I am now freer than ever to share my love with the world... a world that “I” no longer expect or allow to scare me back into that dark place of my past anymore.   

---