15/11/2021
DAY 0... JERUSALEM: Experiences of a Pilgrim
Just Another Night in ICU
It's 1933hrs...That wall clock is my tv set for days on end. Except for a coupla kind, beautiful staff taking turns to feed me, bed-bath me and nurse me now n then, that's the only entertainment available... a ticking wall clock!
The mood, for a change has been refreshingly quiet today. No loss, no ghastly new tenant. You could say jovial even, by ICU standards.. my home for almost 3 weeks now. I've been dabbling precariously with that near-death thingii some while now; moments of supreme peace and divine tranquil switching randomly into sporadic pain and spasms of excruciating agony.
Not today though.
I'm calm inside. And so seems every one of my co-patients - tucking in steadily behind their curtains for yet another long night in the Intensive Care Unit. Its kinda 70/30 here. The few lucky ones do escape happily to join their families. The rest proceed the other direction... maybe one or two a week!
Our dire situation, the special health conditions we find ourselves in, our absolute vulnerability, our resigned fear and desperate quest for another chance at life, has truly humbled all of us. It has drawn us all ever so close, we are virtual family here, emotionally connected and sincerely empathetic. No airs nor pretences here. Tonight's crew, one Indian, 3 whites, and 2 blacks...we have a full house complement. Ts peaceful and spotless clean, Mater dei..except for Sister Kwenda, who picked a political fight with me from Day 1, every nurse is warm, cheerful and truly pleasant.
No sooner have I shut my eyes to retire than the sound of an emergency siren sets off 3 nurses , Sister November, sis Faith and Musviba scurrying to the aid of Bed # 5.
Ts the tough, jolly fella, Craig. He came in some 5 days back with both legs shattered to mince @ the knees. Yet with a spirit that completely ignored pain and a mood that defied his utterly scrambled limbs. You never met a soul more jovial under adversity so perilous. Every day, Craig cracked our ailing ribs sore, making easy banter of his truly horrifying condition, joking loosely about losing his limbs as you would of dropping some bad habit... "Hell man, for 30 years, those stupid legs walked me into all the wrong places and got me into endless trouble... Damn, I'll be so much better without them!" Often his humour was grim.
"Hey peeps, who of you ever thought doing his own funeral... I mean, like burying yourself...? I told the surgeon to cut off my legs and store them securely in a fridge... I'm gonna have the pleasure , when I come out here, to stash them in a cute coffin, conduct a full funeral ceremony and bury my strong legs nicely at a cemetery... Who wants come guys? Any ideas what I should write on the tombstone of my legs?"
Khonapho lonke ligulel' ukufa fii fii!
Right now something has jus gone wrong and Craig seems to be choking rather badly. That team of nursing staff are struggling to calm him. Soon, I see one o them by the desk in front of me, rather frontically calling Dr Cohen to rush in. From behind my curtain cubicle, I couldn't mistake the sounds of struggle, of collective effort , of near panic.
Next minute, the good doctor is heard instructing Sister Majongosi, to summon Craig's family. I saw the the beautiful blonde wife flash past my bed wide- eyed...Craig's mom behind her. The flurry of questions! I hear Dr Cohen mumble some attempt at both narrating what may have happened and offering uncertain reassurances.
Meanwhile, the sounds of struggle continue, the sounds of effort continue and the sense of panic seems to rise rather than subside. All the time, I literally hear the sound of my own heartbeat rising higher and faster.
I lay still. Two holes drilled into either rib- cage with suction pipes shoved deep into my bowels, draining bloodied lung sludge out of my chest all night, every night. I had been frozen into a zombie, utterly helpless.
Yet this minute. my thumping heart and the eyes of my mind were over the curtains with Craig, my courageous Boer buddy who had vowed to shame pain.
Soon there's dead silence and a sense of despair and resignation replaces that buoyancy and sense of urgency in Room 5. A wailing wife. A wailing mom... Some confused words of disbelief murmured back n forth. Someone mentions the direction of a chapel. And yes, Craig's gone!
There wasn't 20 minutes between Craig's bumpy, abrupt exit and the next ugly siren. At the far end, Room 1 , was the very soul of the ICU ward. A cute , absolutely angelic baby girl, Onhlê . So tiny, so sweet... forever peaceful in her incubator, Onhlê was born prematurely to this awesome teenage couple who were almost our permanent co- residents now. So adorable. Something was the matter with Onhlê' s heartbeat, they said, but it was correctable. So often, we shelved our own agonies and all prayed for the lil angel to pull through.
It was not to be!
Jus 17 minutes after Craig left unceremoniously... Siren... stampede... Panic... Doctor...family... Panic... Wailing ... Chapel... Gone! Onhlê, like that, our lil angel, gone!
My surviving counterparts, 2 adults and a young lad are fast asleep, blissfully ignorant of the grim tragic drama my evening has turned into. Fear engulfs me and sleep completely deserts me. How will I face them when day breaks again!
It's 2210hrs. The crew of young night duty nurses is burnt out, visibly drained and utterly helpless. I didn't know they get so attached and breakdown and cry when they lose patients jus as you n I do when we lose loved ones.
Sister Majongosi is doing her best to hide her teary eyes from me, but I can feel through her bleeding heart as she tries to explain the night's horror and to coax me to sleep. I understand. I'm tryin my stupid best to comfort her in turn.
The Sister's efforts are abruptly halted by my neighbouring bed. Aunt Sheilla, on Bed 4 , right next to me is I'll @ ease... and the poor crew of nurses suddenly converge there... No. Here, right next to me!
Same drill. Same routine... Same calls... same panic... Same chapel!
Tonight the grim ripper, the Devil himself is harvesting. He didn't send his gangster angels this time. He's come himself. Ruthless in his precision and gothic in his efficiency.
By 0300hrs I have no new tears to cry. Their very spring has dried up. I ceased to pray for myself and my fellow patients. Clearly, ours is a cause lost. I prayed for the nurses.Their defiant spirits have visibly worn out by morning. Desolate. My honor and respect for the nursing profession has never been more complete... even before Covid19. Why would anyone have to endure this much pain and trauma in their daily work? God, why?
We had a full compliment of 6 ICU patients as late as 1900 hrs last night. This morning by 0600 hrs, as a fresh shift of day nurses troop in, only 2 of us patients remain! 2!
I never was so defeated, so de-spirited, so alone and without hope, so numb in the soul as this day. Never!
Then unannounced, off the visiting hour storms in my great pastor Reuben Mabhena. His eyes curiously intent, the Rev asks for a private moment, none of his usual pleasantries and reassuring jokes... he holds my hand, places a Bible on my chest and prays long and deep, a prayer I've never forgotten. Meditates a moment and leaves!
I skip a hundred miracles for another day! Something happened on that hospital bed. Something special. Something precious and miraculous. God is real. God is amazing....
So folks, as I relate my encounter to my brother, Douglas Dube on a road trip to Harare, the testimony catches fire in his wife's heart.
Instantly, Alice invites me on a two week all-expenses paid pilgrimage of the Holyland, Jerusalem to walk the footprints of Christ Jesus...from Bethlehem to Mount of Ascension. It ain't the money I'm grateful for. Anyone may give you that. It is the gift of God.
God's children are on the move. Tourists of religion, historians, atheists, anthropologists, archeologists and Christians alike...if ever there was a MUST tour, this is it!
Balancing Rocks & ASIYE TRAVEL & TOURS begins this week to share a travel series, Jerusalem: Experiences of a Pilgrim.
