98 sleeps

(A point in limine for my mom: don’t freak out when you read this; all’s well that ends well)

Santa sucked this year.

I went to the family SS for Xmas, which was great. We had the standard present-and-turkey day; the food was a delicious traditional hot lunch. ‘Twas all lovely. I woke up the next day with a horrific pain in my stomach. What is this?, thought I. Did Mrs SS go a little too ballistic on the spices for the turkey stuffing? Was I getting flu? Was it a latent injury arising from the last time I trained? (PAH! Pfft! That’s funny even as I write it… one must actually train hard for an injury to arise.) I went to the emergency doctor (after I went to the bookstore and purchased myself three – three – more books). He did his cursory examination on the table by tap-tapping on my stomach. Flu? No. Torn muscles? Hell no. The doctor said that my symptoms were consistent with someone who had either an inflammatory pelvis or ovarian cancer.

[sound of needle scratching on record]

Or what? What? Can you repeat that please? What? How the f*ck can this happen to me?

Ok, we can deal with this. We can deal.

I went back to the flat and locked myself in. This was on the Friday. I was booked in for the sonogram on the Monday. I made a big pot of herbal tea (shameless plug: Cape Town Nights Black Tea blend from the Tea Emporium in Cavendish) and hopped into a hot bath (shameless plug: with mint and eucalyptus bath salts from Rain in Waterfront). Then I drank my tea and sat in the tub until it was cold. Then I re-ran the bath and got back in. And did the same thing over again. I think that’s what emotional shock does. Wash, rinse, repeat in some sort of Jung-ian return-to-the-womb fashion. I spent three days drinking tea, bathing, watching adventure movies (Pirates; Lord; Indiana), hiding in my flat and sms-ing Mrs Starke, Sister SS, DomTastic and Little Mouse, who were all supportive and provided rational arguments for the whole process (thanks guys!!!).

When Monday finally rolled around, I half-ran, half-crawled to the radiologists. Being petrified by circumstance and difficult by nature, I made the radiologist show-and-tell the entire process. After twenty minutes of examination, they gave me the all clear. OC eliminated as a problem.

Phew!

With that, I hopped into TheNotTheBullet, threw Sister SS in the passenger seat and screamed up to Little Mouse’s spot on the Breede River. We were meant to stay one day; we ended up staying for four. What a fantastic spot! Fishing for kabeljou! My favourite thing! Riding waves in Blaublass! My favourite thing! Reading by the beach! My favourite thing! Braaing with the folks! My favourite thing! Riding in the rubber duck to the Bush Bar! My favourite thing! Carrying the rubber duck across the river at low tide in the dark for a vodka lime! My favourite thing! Laang-araming with the hotel cleaning staff on NYE! My favourite thing! I’m sorry I missed Beaverlac with Mr and Mrs Starke, the Dunbar Whittakers, Heids et al, and I’m sorry I missed out with the Queen and her crew, and my housemate theGreek and his crew, but I had an absolute blast at the Malgalas hotel on New Year. In my mind, you know you are doing New Year’s right when you are barefoot, on a dirt road in the bush, listening to a blend of saakie music, 80s pop, current hits and hip hop and trying to speak three different languages.