Soulparking

Millerton Medi-Clinic, Cape Town, South Africa

Friday, 22 April 2005

It could have happened on the twenty-hour flight out from JFK to Dakar, Senegal and then on to J-burg or later to Cape Town.  But it started like a little gas pain in my stomach the next morning when I showed up for work.

It’s the same pain I had felt multiple times while being in South Africa.  And I was going to do what I usually did and ignore it until it went away.  The last time it happened – the day I left for the States for Christmas – I almost broke down and went to the doctor’s office.  The pain was excruciating.  But I contributed it to either bad food or the extreme stress.

The office made a joke that I had gotten wasted the night before I left for the States – and that’s the reason I didn’t show up for the last day prior to my holiday vacation.

And once I got on the plane for my Holiday vacation, I felt 100% better and never once thought about the pain again.

That was until this last Monday.  The pain was back.  And again, it was after an extremely stressful situation of taking a delegation of South Africans to the States to introduce them to Strategy and R&D – and getting chastised for it by European Management.  So again, I thought it might be a little bit of gas and stress again.  Possibly thirdly, it could be from the jet lag or the horrible airplane food.  So again – I let it go.

But throughout the day, it got worse and worse.  Finally, it was so bad I went home early to catch a “nap” to catch up on my sleep.  But I couldn’t sleep.   I was suddenly overtaken with horrendous chills and the pain in my abdomen was so bad that I could barely walk and I definitely could not stand up straight.  I couldn’t take it anymore.  I called my office administrative assistant and asked for her to recommend a doctor I could see immediately. 

She did.

And the two hours I had to wait until that appointment was the longest two hours of my life.  And upon arriving, the medi-clinic doctor remarked on how pasty my complexion was.  I explained that I thought it was bad chicken – because I missed Cape Town so much I immediately went to Nando’s to get some take out when I returned late Sunday night.  I ate at 10:30. 

I lay down on the exam table and he started pressing on points in and around my stomach and chest.  That’s when he said:

“There’s an abnormal mass here.  I am going to call a surgeon to come and check you out.”

In about ten minutes there was a surgeon in his office that was kneading my stomach like bread – and he agreed.  “There is a mass.”  But they could not agree between them if it was appendix (which isn’t foreign but possibly enlarged or worse yet burst) or something else foreign (cancer). 

The surgeon led me directly to the hospital.  He drove me straight there and went ahead to the administrative offices and initiated the paperwork and getting me a room.  The nurses at the front desk tried to make me feel at home by saying, “Michael Jackson, please come to the front…”  And as usual, I went along with it – even though I was in severe pain. 

“Yeah, Michael Jackson, but I do not like kids or monkeys.”  I replied smiling.

It’s amazing how much worse paperwork seems when you are in agony. 

SURNAME:  Who gives a crap?

SEX:  Not now.  Not ever if you don’t fix me.

ID NUMBER: I guess we are the same in the United States with our Social Security Number – everything has to have it.  But the SA ID is the key to everything.  Like a mini-passport.  Although the borders to South Africa are porous to its northern neighbors – the SA ID is the way to filter out the immigrants.

“Where are you from?” the nurse asked from the behind the Casualty Desk.

My answer is always the same, and yeah, I could give them what they want but I like to mess with their brains a bit.  “Well, I moved about a year ago from Heidelberg, Germany.”

“But is that where you are from?”

“Okay, originally I am from North Carolina in the States.”

Then they smile.  “I thought so. I love your accent”

Once finished, I sat there waiting, stinging in my abdomen, and looking at the posters around the Casualty Entrance.  There was one sign on a far wall discussing what HIV was and what were its symptoms.  It showed a giant skeleton picture with a circle around the abdomen.  I wanted to get up and walk over and see what it said – without anybody noticing that I am casually getting up to read an HIV poster.  But in my condition – it would be blatantly obvious. 

It would be like HIV Awareness Days in South African companies during the summer.  They have these huge parties where HIV testing is free and instantaneous and everybody is in a celebratory mood.  And at the company I worked at that was 5 stories with 8000 employees, they had even put painted footsteps on the floor leading you to the medical clinic to do your free and fast HIV test.

I mean the idea in concept is a good one.  But are they hoping that one day, best friends after grabbing lunch will say, “Hey dude, let’s take an HIV test?”  Minus the implications that means you have not been careful – or that you sleep with hookers – or you like to suck blood or semen.  Not sure if it will be ever be that commonplace.

But Blood Donations with hot nurses giving out cookies and coke – that’s the best-hidden HIV testing idea on the planet.

So dragging myself to the sign meant the following implications of HIV – not careful, hookers, sucking semen or blood.  No one really thinks:  curiosity.

“Mister Jackson?”  Said a nurse with her sisters gathered around her between swinging metal doors.

“Yes?”  And I staggered up. 

“I am going to lead you to your room.” And then she led me confusingly down long corridors and through doorways to my new home:  Ward D, Bed 7.  The surgery ward.