Doctors spend their days labelling people. Depending on which speciality we work in, we all have slightly different ways of doing so. For example, my mom's physician would label her like this: 62 year old female #kidney donor 2018 with #mild renal impairment Or my sister's gynaecologist would label her this way: 29 year old … Continue reading Labels
Today was my last day at Brackengate Hospital; the tin-can COVID hospital where I have spent the past fifteen months; the Hospital of Hope. I was a part of the Brackengate team from day one. I watched the empty warehouse form into a colourful 300-bed hospital, with a rainbow "it will be ok" drawing above … Continue reading Farewell, Brackengate!
The Rona got me. I evaded her for more than a year but eventually, she broke through my defences and stole my taste and smell. She also left me with this annoying cough that makes me sound like I have a 40 pack-year history even though I have never touched a cigarette in my life … Continue reading Isolation ramblings
Things I wonder while waiting for the nurses to bring me the death notification book
The rain is falling heavy on this metallic warehouse roof. It's 8pm. We have to raise our voices to be heard above the watery clamour. The rain is falling heavy on this metallic warehouse roof. This roof that keeps the rain out and the virus in. Its 11pm. The machines have to beep louder to … Continue reading Night shift
I have a thing for words; an obsession; an infatuation. A logolepsy. Give them to me in any shape or form. Song lyrics, poetry, spoken verse, seven-hundred page novels, simple one-line phrases. I love the spaces between words. The chance to pause and take it in. An escape; an abditory. I love how reading them … Continue reading Writing challenge – Day 14 – Words
Is it just me,or does joy become more elusive as you get older?Like joy is the sunand it becomes eclipsed by clouds.Clouds that are worrySelf-doubtGuiltShameRates and taxesTraumatic experiencesCar maintenanceAn ill loved oneClimate changeA pandemicSo many cloudsmakes it hard to seethe sun.But the sun is always there;shining despite the clouds.Sliding in and out of blue-sky gaps,making … Continue reading Writing challenge – Day six – Joy
It's difficult to recall a random memory, in all its glorious detail, on demand. But when I smell a certain scent or hear a particular song they come flooding back. An onslaught of immaculate detail. Years and years later. Even the memories I didn't know I had. Like when I hear Black Eyed Peas' "I … Continue reading Writing challenge – Day three – A memory
DCIM\100GOPRO\GOPR9250.JPG There is something in the air down here; in the Garden Route. Take a drive with me along the N2 and you will see. It's alive. You can feel it in your bones. It's the kind of something that makes you want to roll down your windows, turn up your radio and breathe. One … Continue reading There is something in the air down here
My grief is on fire todayand so is the mountain.The air is thick.It burns my throat.I inhale. I choke.Sirens wail behind the smoke,rotor blades pierce through the density.The surfaces of my apartment,of my heart,are covered in ash.The remains of Mother Naturefall softly to the groundunperturbed by the chaos surrounding.As if to say,“Continue your destruction,and I … Continue reading Ecological Grief
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