Taking the journey

Digging yourself out of a dark hole when you are really more afraid of getting out of it than staying inside it, is impossible, right? No, it’s not.  It really isn’t.  I can honestly say, my circumstances haven’t changed at all, life is still tough and challenging, but my view has changed.  This change wasn’t because of medication, friends, family or an inspiring tv show.  I just slowly changed. 

It wasn’t like I got up one day and decided I am going to be better.  I didn’t pray and have my prayers answered.  I just slowly realized that today is okay. I’m never going to be completely okay, but that’s cool too right? It’s not like you are really okay either.  Life has a tendency to break us down and build us up, and I guess that is normal.  So let’s ride this bicycle up and down the hill hmm?

 

Who I am & the Letter

I have been silent for the simple reason that for a while, it felt as if my whole world fell apart.  After working up the courage to confide to a good friend, patting myself on the back for my outstanding bravery for this huge accomplishment, and then being kicked in the face for my efforts when the friend declared, in dripping venom, that I should not be offering advice when my life sucks, so I should just rather shut up and sit in a corner.

Those were off course not her exact words, but you get the gist.  Well, I felt her words as if she physically hit me and I felt out of breath for days. I cried on and off for 3 weeks before the anger kicked in.  Sadly, during the three weeks of mourning, an idiotic colleague, whom I don’t care enough about to dislike or like, tells me that she believes that I can handle it when she tells me that she never liked me.  Random much?

 We’ve been working together for years, we get on fine, have never had problems, she just didn’t really EXIST for me, if you know what I mean? She was there, and she was nice, but she wasn’t really THERE.  I barely know her. So wtf? Right? What on Earth did I do to her to deserve her enmity? And if, the 40% of the world that I KNOW dislikes me, and the 50% of the world that I believe couldn’t care enough to dislike or like me also apparently dislikes me, and the 10% of the world that are my friends and despise me enough to betray and humiliate me publicly, what the hell am I still doing here?

Well, that is exactly how I felt when I wrote this letter.  I didn’t want to publish it, but then decided I would.  Because, you know, this is where I was during my silence.  I have recently learned that despite the fact that the rest of humanity can’t reconcile who I am with how pathetically fake and useless they are as a species, I am ok with it.  I am interested in ancient Egypt, I love sci-fi, I love fantasy, I write, I paint badly; I can’t play a musical instrument, well, I can play… I just do it very very badly.  I listen to Elvis and to Dropkick Murphy’s and think Justin Bieber is lame, I like reading and generally hate the movies of the books afterward because they (pardon the French folks) FUCK IT UP. I cry at weddings (but only when the bride walks down the aisle) and find the wedding service dull and pretentious.  I am polite to everyone, whether I like you or not, because I dislike rudeness.

I sing loudly and the world shakes because my voice is that bad.  I believe strongly, have strange and random beliefs that I never push down on others, I can’t be converted to your faith, but respect you all the same.  I like all these parts of me.  This is who I am, and if I do not conform to what you perceive I should be, well, sorry, I’d rather be me than whatever you’re supposed to be. 

So hate me, I don’t care, I will still just not care enough about you to hate or love you. That is who I am. If you don’t like it, well, there’s simply nothing I can do about that.  I have always found my peace in writing, reading and following my dreams.  I’ve never needed you or whatever your current idea of perfection is.  I am 10 kg overweight, but you know, after living my entire life as skin and bone, I finally like my body, if you want to be a stick figure or a whale, I generally don’t care. Yes, I’m almost chubby.  AT LAST. So leave me the fuck alone.  If you hate my taste in music, don’t hang around where you can listen to it.  If you hate my writing, don’t read it.  If you think my dress sense is whacked, yeah well, it is kinda, but I like it, so there. I don’t like make up much, but you know what, I don’t need to paint myself to be who I am.  Sometimes I’ll throw on some green eyeshadow and green highlights in my hair, other times I’ll hang out in my PJ’s the whole day.

If you’ve never liked me anyway, I have nothing to lose by being who I want to be, and everything to gain.  I like me. I like chubby crazy wild and whacky me, and this letter… this letter is the last time that you will ever kick me while I’m down, bringing my existence as a person into question when I really should have made peace with that a long time ago. 

Dear Mother.

It should please you greatly to hear that your hard work has paid off.  I’m as wrecked a human being as you could ever hope to find.  I’m not half the mother myself that I ever hoped to be, and yet, I’m far better than you yourself ever were.

I’m married to an amazing man who is mostly kind and brilliantly funny, and incredibly attractive to boot, but can still not find acceptance from him for my clumsy nature and irrepressible enthusiasm. He is far too reserved a man to ever live with someone half as wild as me.  Yet he perseveres, and I’m left humbled and a little ashamed for not attempting to curb my outrageousness.  Truth be told though, my wild nature is an attempt to prevent myself from ever turning into a stuck up snob like you.  I’d rather sing at the top of my voice in the pouring rain than sit behind a canvas because it is expected of me.  I tried that, and I have no artistic talent, remember? I’m the family Picasso.  We all remember well how little you thought of that painter.  No, Van Gogh was everything, if only I had a smidgeon of his greatness.

An inability to trust my fellow man has left me with few to none friendships, and the few I have is generally built on reserved behavior and perfect poise. The fun and outrageous crowd I love to surround myself with are actually far too frivolous to truly understand the precarious balance I live upon; the knife’s edge of sanity. Either I am outrageous and wild, or dignified and solicitous. Truly, I have no idea where I belong.  I question daily my motivation for my silly joy of life, my reckless and wild crazy love of loud and boisterous music and dancing, when I have in equal measure this incredible sense of propriety. I no longer know. 

It would further please you to hear that the one instance that I trusted a friend with a personal problem, I was betrayed and humiliated publicly, my sorrow thrown into the face of those closest to me and my value as a human being, friend and advisor completely debased, with none to raise a word of honor or defense. I have finally learnt the hardest lesson of all, the one you were trying so hard to force into my psyche.  I am not worthy of friends.  I am not worthy of love and above all, should never have existed.  I believe you now.  I will never make the same mistake again.  I am a failure at motherhood, a failure at being a wife and a failure at being a friend. Worthless and unwanted.  Now that I have acknowledged your infinite power over my existence, I would very much like for your ghost to stop haunting me, stop dogging my steps, and stop whispering your demotivating dribble. I truly, finally, irrevocably, believe.

 

The world of “Blog”

For a long time, my voice has been silent, and with no real good reason.  First I was drawn into the World of Warcraft, and after an addicting 3 weeks of playing the game through every spare moment, my sanity seemed to return slightly, just to find myself lost in the world of Stargate.  After a marathon of watching every SG1 episode and the heartbreak that went with the end of Season 10, my sanity finally seemed to return – tentatively off course.

I am shocked to discover that my blog, devoid of my madness, did not improve, did not post new and exciting topics daily and in fact, did absolutely nothing in my absence!

 I was kind of hoping that removing my bad influence meant that it would simply write itself and improve drastically if I’ve been removed from it, but alas, it turns out the world isn’t quite ready for an artificial me, and a ghost writer is for successful, famous people.

All right, I admit, I forgot about the existence of the world of “Blog”, but you can’t rightly blame me. I existed in a wonderful world of fiction for a few weeks! So, as punishment for my severe and appalling neglect of Here I Rayne, I decided to commit to the following:

NaNoWriMo (I registered today and am going to have to do the flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-thing) Because my book still requires far too much research to continue working on it, so I’ll have to randomly think up something else (which should be easy for someone as whack as me, right?).  I will never in a million years be able to do 1500 words a day, especially as rusty as I am after this long, long silence, but I want to aim for 500 words a day, and if I do more, I can reward myself with bacon *thought of 10 Kg overweight already pops into my head* All right, no bacon. It was worth a shot. *Sigh*

Very well, 1500 words a day, and one blog a week.  After successfully concluding this project for November, I’m allowed one plate of bacon and eggs. Right?

Does this blog count as blog 1 of four for November 2011?

 

#FML – It happens to the best of us, and apparently to me too.

I wrote this blog a few weeks back and decided not to post it.  The reason for that was because I was hating every moment and every thing in my life and just didn’t want anyone to know how bad it was.  I decided today, I should post it.  Probably because I am feeling positive again; but mostly because I think mothers everywhere can relate. So here it is:

My blog has been so quiet lately and no matter what I say to motivate myself to get moving, nothing I write seems to feel natural, so I save draft after draft one paragraph in and never finish it. Today, I finally figured out why. Off course, I had to get a panic attack first, nothing as simple as a normal epiphany for me, no sir!

So you’re thinking, panic attack? Yeah well, it happens to the best of us… and to me too apparently. So this is how it happened: I’m a working mom.

Yes, that’s it. I’m afraid there is nothing else to it. I dashed all your hopes of it not happening to you, didn’t I? Yeah well, toughen up… or at least buy some wine.

I’m in that rough place where I know who I am and what I want, but I have no idea how to make it happen.  I also have no idea how to reconcile my wife-side and my mom-side with the newly discovered me.  It’s still me, but I’m growing, and getting to know myself better, so how do my old identity, which is still me, fit in with my new identity that is also still me? Deep breath… only my breath, only my breath, only my… Right, I’m back, and focusing.

Obsessing about it is also not helping. Yeah, self-help-gurus, I know you advise against obsessing, but suck it. I don’t know how to stop. The best we can sometimes hope for is the ability to get through the day.

I did a piece on 10 things I should remember, and I am sticking with my own advice, sometimes all we have is our faith, and that’s okay too. Never mind the fact that I’ve imagined myself with fingers around my hubby’s throat like five times today and fidgeted with the masking tape, thinking how wonderful it would be if I wouldn’t feel guilty for taping my incessantly talking 9 year-old daughter’s mouth closed. Yes, I need to forget that I entertained such horrific notions, or that I deliberately locked myself in the ladies room for 20 minutes today because I simply couldn’t face anything or anyone while I was motivating myself not to cry.

Faith, the one thing I say to myself every day, Keep the faith. Tomorrow… Tomorrow everything will get better. Just one more day, you can do this.  Sometimes though, sometimes I just can’t, and I need to lock myself in a bathroom to regain my composure. Mothers are so hard on themselves. Half the things that I imagine doing will never be realized either because I am too ashamed to even admit it to myself (Thank God), or I’m too busy to strive for it (Damn).

Friends, this is what I am talking about. Trying to follow your dreams when you have other responsibilities is hard, even for the best of us, and apparently, for me too.

Coming to terms with my goals and my reality is a journey that is going to take the rest of my life, and I think I’m okay with it. Screw that, I’m getting some wine! I’m so very much not okay with it.

 

10 Things I should remember

I’ve really been off the radar for a few days and still need to continue my dentist and bucket list pieces. Truthfully though, I just felt like, screw it, I’ll get to it when I get to it. I have been feeling a little guilty for neglecting my blog though, so I have decided to do a little something that I have been planning for some time.

1.  You work for a salary, not for someone who knows or even cares about your worth. Get the job done and you get paid. Appreciation of you as an individual is what friends and family is for.

2.  Get over it. No really, this is the most important thing anyone can learn. Sometimes, we just need to get over it and move on. There comes a time when we have to accept the things we can’t change. Make that your truth for the day.

3.  You’re a screw up. Everyone is. It’s kind of part of being human, and it’s okay.

4.  Words are really powerful, and can never be taken back. Regret is one of the worst things a person can live with.

5.  Nothing on earth is broken beyond repair. Unless it’s a Ming vase or something.

6.  Respect is earned, but everyone deserves to be treated with respect; regardless.

7.  Hope is tenacious, whenever you think you’ve lost it, you surprise yourself by finding yourself still hoping, even if your world has crashed and burned.

8.  Have faith, whatever that may mean to you as an individual. Have faith in yourself, in your god, in your husband, wife or child. Have it, and hold on to it. Some days all you have is your faith, and that’s okay too.

9.  When you watch a movie or read a book, live it. What’s the point otherwise.

10.  Learn when to shut up. There’s usually signs. (Note to self…repeat this mantra five times every day)

 

The Dentist…. Part (I)

You’re already cringing, aren’t you? Yeah, well, at the end of this story, you’ll probably need counseling too.  I do.

Wisdom teeth, what purpose do they serve other than growing into awkward spots they were never meant to be in, cracking your other beautiful and healthy teeth to smithereens or turning a straight smile into a disturbing sideway staircase. Yes, I had problems with my wisdom teeth. If you didn’t, shut up and go away, I hate you.

For some background, I believe it’s best if you understand how I feel about dentists. I have the firm belief anyone that looks that closely into another person’s mouth with a drill in their hands has issues. Serious ones that need years and years of counseling. With someone that really know their stuff. That being said, you can understand that when my wisdom teeth starting giving problems, my first reaction was not to find the first dentist to fix it. It was to suck up the pain and wait until the tooth came out by itself. Thus the path to everlasting pain and despair began.

Two years after the initial symptoms, in absolute desperation, I make an appointment with my dentist. (to clear things up, I’m kind of obsessed about clean teeth in the scary kind of way – to avoid the chair off course)

He x-rayed my mouth and jaw and told me that it would require a specialist to extract these wisdoms due to the angle it was growing in my mouth. (My wisdom teeth had decided that the closest fresh air should be obtainable through my ears) He gave me a referral and pointed me to Tygerberg Dental Clinic. I shuddered my first day there. A government facility where you rock up at 06h00 in the morning, so you can stand in a line, locked out of the building in the freezing cold for two hours, just so you can be one of the 76 lucky people to see the dentist. You scribble your name onto the sheet and get a number, if you’re really lucky, you rocked up at 05h00, which means you should be one of the first 25 to be called.

The screening process off course has you sitting on uncomfortable plastic coated chairs with all manner of germ infested folk (I’m not a germaphobe, some of these people were just that dirty) and frantic moms whose desperate bid to hold onto their suddenly rabid two year olds happens to take place over your lap, shoes, shoulders, handbag and right where you were going to put your foot in your feverish dash to escape, leaving you sprawled and at the mercy of any number of excitable germs.

If you’re lucky, a kindly old man might help you up while the rest of the people stare at you as if you are insane (the frantic mom never noticed because she’s running down the passage screaming for the rabid toddler’s return)

Once you’ve been in “Sifting” for approximately 3 hours, and the dentist on duty can’t assist with your particular problem, he may send you for x-rays (in my case…again)

Things only mildly improve in the waiting area of X-Rays. Now you wait with less people, but there is only approximately 20 seats, which has been filled with everyone and their family by the time you get there, so you are left to stand for about an hour, because the old lady that has just arrived really should sit down in the recently vacant seat, and so it goes, until finally, whatever sense of charity you may have had at the beginning of the day, is forced through a set of clenched teeth by sheer will alone.

Another two hours spent here has a nurse stuffing very sharp little plates into your gums on the sides and telling you in a matronly little voice to please bite down as hard as you can. And you go ??????!!!!

Barely having survived the Tygerberg Slice and Dice Massacre (Texas, watch out!) you get sent up to the specialist office to… wait for it… make an appointment! I will continue the story of the first appointment for my right sided wisdoms at another time, and let you decide for yourself whether it’s probably better to just get false teeth or whether you should go ahead and try to keep your own.

 

Silence isn’t Golden

Child abuse is one of those scary facts of life that affect more people than you may expect, more than is guessed at or shown in statistics. It affects the people who love the victim and the abuser in ways that most people don’t even take the time to think about. It affects the victim in countless different ways through all stages of his or her life.

You might be wondering why I would choose to write about something so somber on a Friday night, when all the normal people out there are resting at home with a movie or going out for celebratory drinks, or simply just going out to have a good time.

Well, an acquaintance recently told me about an incident that happened at his home with a family friend’s 9 year old daughter who touched his younger son inappropriately and the way he dealt with the problem. Now the question you should ask yourself is; how would you deal with the problem? Try to answer as honestly as you can, taking into consideration the potential relationship you may have with the parents of said child. This is by no means easy. This acquaintance and his wife chose to address the problem in a reasonable discussion with his son, with a cautioning to stay away from this girl. This might be the way most parents would like to deal with this; after all, our first concern is and always will be the welfare of our own child.

I understand that, and I respect that, however there is still more to it, aren’t there? I raised the fact that a child of that age doing inappropriate things like that indicates a history of sexual abuse. His answer was “possibly, however there are girls of ten or eleven starting a career in prostitution, and sometimes kids are just messed up” I mean, how can that possibly be his answer? If there is a problem with her brain/psychology (and here I must admit I know little about the subject) it would most certainly manifest in a different manner, after all, we do what we know, and we lash out in ways that feel familiar.

He was immovable in his conclusion that it was not his place to raise the matter, as, for all he knew, the father may be the one responsible.  In their defense, they did discuss the situation in depth and reviewed their evidence and the potential conclusion of this problem before deciding that it was not their problem. I must ask though… whose problem is it? Some other parent can say something if it happens to their child was the response, (I was thinking: which might be what the previous parent said, before your difficult conversation with your innocent child, that parent may have had a similar one with their child)

So the problem continues. The victim, who is drowning in shame, thinks that no one is aware of their shame (because in most cases, the children feel responsible for it, as if they are asking for it in some way) and the abuser feels all powerful in how brilliant society is in its set up and fear of rocking the boat. They get away with it. Forever. Ready to abuse the next child, who could very well be yours.

Discussing abuse and our roles in it, is actually worth a lot more pages and time, I would however like to keep my argument short. It is cowardly to decide that you will not take a moral stand on it because it is inconvenient, may cause trouble and be unpleasant for the people involved. By deciding to simply cut the person out of your life without trying the make a difference protects only your child, and only for now. This abuser may very well get another chance with another child, someone you care about, maybe even your child (perhaps in an environment where you are not in control to protect him or her) or even your grandchild, years from now. Is this what you want your child to do if they are faced with a similar problem? Is avoidance really the one value you want your child to learn?

This is something you don’t know. I am a victim of abuse, and I am no longer ashamed. When I look at my daughter and the innocence that radiates from her, I understand, finally, just how helpless I really was. In retrospect, I also know that some people were aware of the abuse as there were signs. I wasn’t an unhappy child. Abused children rarely are, we tend to compartmentalize our lives as a way to cope with the trauma. We never unlearn this. I was a good student, did my homework, listened to my parents, and always maintained a positive outlook.

My lashing out came much later, just after my teenage years in fact. Other signs were there though. Signs that, if you had the courage, could have prevented years of abuse. This is true for me, and in twenty years, will be true for her. Every day, someone has the power to improve someone’s life, and teach children that there are people who say “Enough”

I learned this only when I myself became a mother. I will be the she-wolf that protects my cub to the bitter end, with my life if I must, and if I have the opportunity to protect your child, I will. No, I am not ashamed, not any more. I am proud of who I have become, not because of the abuse, but despite it.

 

How to Survive the Coming Apocalypse

According to some psychics, the world is coming to an end soon. With the abundance of natural disasters we are experiencing all over the earth, people are becoming more convinced by the day. So I decided we should all be prepared. After all, what’s the harm in being prepared for the worst? Here is an easy step by step guide on how to prepare for the end of the world and how to stay alive after it strikes:

1. Start a vegetable garden. Plant veggies that need little sun or maintenance (when the death cloud appears, we’ll have no sun) Potatoes in a tyre is a good option. Be sure to tell no one what you are doing or why. After all, you can’t feed everyone or you won’t survive for long.

 2. Start stocking up on bottled water. Buy the largest canisters possible and sneak them into your house after dark. Be sure to take note of when the neighbour’s lights go off. You want to be able to take the occasional bath, not keep the entire population from dehydration.

3. Stock up on a great selection of guns and ammo. If you can’t get a gun licence, don’t fret, there are lots of illegal guns to choose from. (You’ll need this to defend your garden and water supply)

 4. If you don’t already know how to shoot, go for lessons. If you have to quit your job and go for security training to become an armed response officer, so be it. You won’t be that for long, and if you are on duty when it happens, you have a free extra bullet proof vest and gun. Can’t hurt, right?

5. Get a variety of camo’s. You can get this from any decent camping store. Make sure you have different sets for different scenarios. Snow camo’s, forest camo’s, desert camo’s and night camo’s. After all, the world is going to change and we simply don’t know what to expect. We need to be prepared to defend our stash against any eventuality. Don’t forget the bullet proof vest.

6. Get night vision goggles, binoculars and some decent knives. Think Bowie knife, swiss army etc. You never know what you will have space for on your person or what you will need. Killing a looter with a swiss army knife is definitely possible. All you need to do is be determined to defend what is yours. Just don’t forget the other guy is starving, he’s ready to do anything to steal your food.

7. Get a back up location. Your house will not hold up against starving looters. Think of higher ground (tsunamis you know). This will give you a great view of people approaching you. It’s all about location. Location, location, location. Never forget it.

8. Have a large van always at the ready. You will need several canisters of petrol stashed in the back. Those ones with its own tap are great because you don’t have to move it around. That can only slow you down.

9. Stock your van with essentials. Canned food items that will hold for several years. Hide this under seats. Keep a tent (you never know if you might need this later) and sleeping bag. Have an extra set of clothes for every possible weather condition in the van. Hide the van under sheeting until d-day and take it for a drive once a week after dark – this will ensure the battery does not run down. You need a reliable vehicle for the apocalypse. Make sure the tank remains full. (fill it up whenever you have to)

10. Stock up on medication for every eventuality. Fake a terrible cold if you have to and get some antibiotics. Don’t drink it, just stock up. Visit 5 different doctors at a time for prescription medication. A few things that are essential:

a. Pain medication (as strong as you can get hold of)

b. Antibiotics

c. Bandages

d. Antibacterial salves

e. Topical anesthetics

f. Plasters

g. Antihistamines

h. Waterless hand cleaner

i. Whatever else you can get your hands on, because you never know when you need to crush some sleeping tablets into a cup of coffee to take a prisoner.

11. Things are going to get lonely and quiet on that mountain. Get some batteries, cd players and compilation cd’s. Get earphones so as not to draw unwanted attention and be sure to keep the music really soft, with an earphone in one ear only. It simply won’t do if you can’t hear an enemy approach.

12. Don’t get sucked in by charm or good looks. It’s every man/woman for him/herself now.

13. If you do happen to have people with you (your children, spouse or parents – neighbours should have been shot on sight, so no tag alongs) be sure to have a professional relationship. It’s the end of the world, you do not have time for mushy feelings. That will get you killed. Your eight year old is big enough to learn how to defend your reserves. Make sure every person in your party has a gun and know how to use it. This is your army now. If there is someone who can’t… well, you don’t need anyone dragging the party down. You’re only as strong as your weakest link.

Now that you know this, you should be better prepared for any eventuality. Remember, no more Mr. Nice Guy. It’s kill or be killed now. By the way, I do NOT have a veggie garden, I do NOT have a water stash and I certainly have no weapons or medication. I live in the North Pole with Santa.

 

Love at first sight

It was love at first sight.  No other word can possibly encapsulate that moment in time. It was a beautiful sunny day, with the usual gale force winds of the Western Cape and I was headed out to lunch. Walking through the entrance of a large supermarket in our local mall, I absently noted the gardening section on display.  Hundreds of seeds, gardening tools and garden gnomes were available at bargain prices. My eyes met his across this chaos and locked on. I stopped dead in my tracks, absolutely mesmerized at his sheer beauty and earthy feel. I had to have him.

I walked straight up to him, picked him up in my arms and cradled him like a baby. I paid and walked out of the shop without ever putting him down. I phoned my husband to open the boot of the car for me. I carefully wrapped him up and put him in the boot.  Waldo thought I was nuts, but love can’t be explained, so I didn’t even try.

I named him Ujo, for the samurai in “The Last Samurai”. Ujo has held a place of honour in our house ever since. He stands guard in our living room. I would not take the risk of putting him in a garden.  When we move house, Ujo does not get packed away.  He gets cradled in someone’s arms for the trip to his new home.

That day, I made the bargain of a lifetime.  I bought true love for R100.00. It’s true what they say about love. It makes you think of nothing else… well, I left the shop that day without buying lunch.

 

Finding and Keeping: Faith

I had been feeling ill for a few days. I had an extreme headache, a stiff and painful neck, weakness of limbs, nausea and light sensitivity. Due to the combination of these symptoms, I was certain it was meningitis. I collapsed at work on May 25 2009 and contacted Waldo to take me to the doctor. The doctor was quite convinced as well, until the blood tests came back negative.

She booked me off for a total of 5 days, unsure of a diagnosis. The following week I went back to work, even worse than I was before. I couldn’t stay awake, I was stuttering so badly that I simply could not talk. I was jerking and shaking, I was walking into objects that I could see was there. I was utterly useless as I was completely unable to concentrate.

I phoned the doctor again and went back to see her. After contacting an Internist, she came back with a diagnosis. I had Viral Encephalitis. Completely uninformed regarding the true risks of the illness, I left her office with another sick note for 5 days. By this time, I was so weak and sleepy that I was unable to eat. It was simply too exhausting. Many of my memories from that time are non-existent, but I recall waking and feeling grubby. I dragged myself to the shower and started washing my hair. I simply could not stay upright to complete the job, so I closed the tap and collapsed on the bed, just dragging a towel over my wet body. My husband found me like that.

The fear that my family lived in those weeks is too devastating to contemplate, seeing my little girl trying to be brave will certainly never be forgotten.

The next week I was still no better and phoned the doctor, requesting a referral to a specialist. I went to see the Internist who first made the diagnosis (telephonically). He gave me one look and said I had to go to hospital. He called in a neurologist to consult on the case. After several tests and brain scans, the news was great.

I was on the mend, but I had developed a neurological disorder. This disorder, Opsoclonus Myoclonus, is, according to the little knowledge we have regarding this condition, an auto immune response which gets triggered in certain situations by some unknown reaction. I had little or no brain damage as my higher brain functions seemed to have been shut down by this disorder.

So there I was, plain old me, having been saved from potential severe brain damage by a disorder that affects one in ten million people. Wow. Is someone watching out for me or what? Living with the condition is often a nuisance, and can be embarrassing during a bad flare up, but it is such a small price to have paid. It could have been a thousand times worse. I see this not as a problem, but as a reminder that no matter what we believe, we simply cannot deny. Someone or something is out there. Picking us up when we fall, guiding us when we are lost and healing us when we are broken.