Our Nightmare Last Week

Tomorrow morning we do a quick shop and then head straight home to our hut on the hill.
However, going home is only a secondary reason to celebrate.
The real reason we were stuck here for a week were very bleak and depressing.

Last Thursday went something like this for Sonja:

Wake up early.
I drop Sonja and the kids (barefoot) at the airport to hire a car.
With a big basket of laundry, a heavy laptop backpack, a carry-all with kids spare clothes, and two shopping bags with even more laundry.
I leave for a meeting on a farm, two hours away.
Oh no. No hire car available.
She tries the other six car hire agents.
Oh no, none of them has a single car available.
In the whole of East London there is no hire car available.
She eventually gets hold of a (very dodgy) taxi, and piles in with all the kids and all our bags, very late and things falling apart.

She drives through to the doctors, and arrives like a storm through the door, with all the kids fighting, and all our bags of laundry being lugged into the waiting room.
The cool drink that Caleb spilled on her leg suddenly looks very apparent.
The kids, covered in Bulungula grime, look and act like hooligans.

The kids are fine says the doctor.
But the lump she discovered in her breast should be monitored and she should come back in a few weeks if it is still there.
Sonja explains where we live, and that it is a real mission to get to a hospital, and the doctor arranges for her to have a scan that afternoon.
Caleb then has a runny tummy attack right in the doctor’s rooms.
Crap everywhere.

She drags all the kids and the laundry back downstairs and eventually gets another taxi.
She heads to the hospital.
The scan is a nightmare because the kids are left on their own in the waiting room while she has her scan.
The scan is a nightmare because the Doctor is very unhappy.
He says he doesn’t like the look of the lump, and she must have it cut out immediately.
He sends her back to the first Doctor.

She then has to trek all the way back with all the kids and bags, and the knowledge that she might have breast cancer.
But not before trying to find some food, any food, for our kids who are now crying, grumpy and hungry.
I am no help, two hours away in a meeting.
How she keeps it together I am not sure.

Caleb craps again. This time at least caught in an emergency nappy she has put on.

She manages to drop the laundry off on the way back to the first doctor.
She runs out of cash to pay the taxi, and they won’t take a cheque or credit card.

Back at the first doctor, the kids are an even bigger nightmare.
She is booked in for a lumpectomy on the Monday.

The doctor, by this time freaking out for Sonja, gives her a lift to a nearby play area where she has to wait three hours for me with very ratty and tired kids.
A really bad and stressful day.

Very bleak all round.

We spend a most awful week-end, trying to imagine the best, but very aware of the worst.
It feels as if the world is pressing down on us.
It feels too much.
How can your life change so very suddenly.
Everything is dark and grey and gloomy.
Claustrophobic.

Monday morning we have an 08h30 appointment with the surgeon.
Sonja checks in at about noon for a 3pm lumpectomy.
(This is where they cut out all of teh lump that they can as well as some healthy surrounding tissue)
She eventually goes into surgery at about 5pm.
When I went to pick her up at 7pm, she is still very out of it.
I take the kids for a second supper and come back at about 9pm.
She is still too sleepy to go home, and after fainting on the way to the loo, in the passage, in front of the kids ("Is Mom dead dad?" asked through tears and sobs) the hospital says she must sleep in and I can collect her the next day.
Feels terrible having it all happen in a strange city, away from home and where all is unfamiliar.
(I did explain very carefully to the kids to put them at ease)
We then have to wait for two or three days while they do the pathology.
It is the worst feeling in the world.
Just terrible. You couldn’t wish it on anybody.
Distracting. Consuming. Grey. Dark. Black Hole.