Coming back to life. Well, sort of.

On January 01, at 8pm, while having dinner with friends, I started feeling some strange pain in my stomach. By 10pm, the stomachache was made worse by a fever, 102 degrees, and I was beginning to have breathing problems. Having been relatively healthy all my life so far, I thought this was just one of those things that come and go. I was wrong. At midnight, I was rushed to the ER. The pain was unbearable. And there was now no way of telling what the problem was, apart from my speculation that it was food poisoning.

At 3am, the doctors came in announcing that my appendix had swollen really badly and needed to be removed as soon as possible. That meant surgery. I was scared. But also I was hungry and I was thirsty. In addition, I was in terrible pain. And yet, a surgeon would be found six hours later (after I almost died of thirst!)

Surgery went well. By 9:30pm on January 02, I was home. However, one thing had been overlooked. The fever had been put down to the appendix problem, but that was not right. After 14 days of strange fevers and migraines, I was rushed again to the ER (on the 16th of January). I did not know what was wrong this time, but the fevers had been getting worse and more frequent. After rigorous tests, etc, they found out I had pneumonia. Yes, right from January 01.

As if that was not enough, while they started treating the pneumonia, the migraines got worse. I have had migraines for a long time, but what I had this time was beyond anything I ever had before. I screamed all the way to the ER on the morning of January 19. And this time I had decided I am not leaving the hospital until they figure out exactly what was wrong. Sure, in a few hours, the migraine was gone, (and has stayed away ever since).

Then begun the slow process of recovery, from the surgery, the pneumonia, the migraines. Before I could say I am doing well, January was gone. I had collected 12 books to read through the month, and I had read only half the first one. But the worst was yet to come: the hospital bills. Oh my gosh! The sangomas could have great businesses here!

Nevertheless, God's grace is sufficient. I survived January. I am still here.