ER: Jo'burg Style

---

Today was my third day of taking antibiotics, and I could tell that something was wrong. I was getting worse, not better. I had gone fifty-five hours without food, and I was starting to get dehydrated; it was getting to the point that I could barely swallow small sips of water. I couldn't talk without wanting to cry, and even breathing without pain was starting to become an issue. I felt genuinely frightened by this razorblade-like agony. I had never experienced anything like it in my life, and I hope I never do again.

The owner of the lodge where I was staying in Johannesburg (yes, we're back in the city now) was a star, and he drove me straight to the Arwyp Hospital in Kempton Park. Some of that visit is a blur, covered by a haze of pain, but here is what I do remember. I remember being seen by a doctor in the trauma unit who kept calling me 'angel' and telling me to have a good cry before trying to explain what was wrong. I remember that she took me to see a second doctor, who looked at the medication I had been given two days previously and informed me that it was only suitable for children, not adults, and so this was the reason why I had been getting worse. I remember one nurse saying to another nurse that they had to hurry, because "this girl is in so much pain it's unreal". I remember having three injections, two of which hurt like hell but were preferable to the other pain. I remember being so dizzy and so faint that I expected to pass out at any moment. And lastly, somehow I remember through all the pain and all the tears that the second doctor was one attractive specimen.

Honestly, I can't fault the doctors and nurses there at all. I was in and out of that hospital within an hour and a half, and the injections coupled with the extremely strong pain relief tablets I was given meant that just swallowing water re-entered the realms of possibility for me in less than ten minutes. It will take a good few days before I'm one hundred per cent back to normal, but this is a very promising start.

---