Bats, Rabies and The Walking Dead…

This story seems a little bit ridiculous and believe me, I can hardly comprehend this series of events, but it did happen and I have the rabies shots schedule to prove it.

It all started in a KFC parking lot, I had just reached my car with food in hand when a tiny little bat landed “SLAP” on my car. Being the animal lover that I am, I didn’t want to hurt the poor little creature, which was now under my rear wheel, struggling to crawl away after the shock of colliding with my car. Without so much as a second thought, I gently picked it up and examined it, making sure its wing wasn’t broken. This was not to the bats liking and it decided to clamp down hand on my finger. Yes! I got bitten by a bat on the finger.

After a series of events where the bat hung upside down on the same finger it had just bitten, scaled my torso, found a perch on my shoulder and took off into the night from there, I began to think like a rational human being. Would I need a rabies shot?

After chatting to my mates I decided to seek treatment at my local Private hospital. The nurse who assisted me was worried about my medical savings because turns out rabies shots cost almost R700 a shot at private hospitals. She advised I go to a Government Hospital where the shots were administered for FREE. Can you believe it? R700 plus consultation vs FREE treatment. I was out of there like well…a bat out of hell.

And, so began an evening of very strange events. I decide to go to Addington Hospital, which is situated on the beach front. I had been to Addington before for an amazing Cancer outreach programme, so I kind of knew what it was like…or so I thought.

That night was like something from an episode of The Walking Dead. There were people screaming in Casualty, bloodied men swaying in the corridors clutching bleeding, open wounds and medical staff running around trying to help paramedics usher in more blood covered people.

Image source: http://gph.is/1oJ2xi5 

I took a deep breath and decided to stop being a scared little white girl. “You are an adult and you need medical attention” I told myself over and over again. As respectfully as possible I approached a nurse who was busy preparing a shot. “Sorry Sister, I can see you’re very busy, but could you please tell me if I’m in the right place to get a rabies shot?” She glared at me for a second and told me to go down the hall to the Trauma unit.

On my way to Trauma I passed more people who looked like they had just lost a fight with a zombie. So much blood. Once at the Trauma Unit counter I asked if I was in the right place. I was handed a slip and told to go back towards the Casualty Unit, past it and to counters 1, 2 and 3.

After waiting a moment or two and man logged in all my details, created a file for me and sent me back the Trauma. Once I was back the nurses gave me a complete schedule of when I have to come back to have my jabs. She led me into one of the consultation rooms and took out a small pre-packed kit. “So nice and easy they make it for us” she said with a smile.

Four shots over almost a month. I quickly learnt that The Walking Dead in the corridors, where according to the nurses, men and women who get paid and drink their money. “It’s okay to have a drink, but these people go too far. Then they come here and we must help them because they get violent and it happens again and again”.
(I have paraphrased a bit)

After this ordeal, I’ve learnt a number of things.
1) Use a cloth if you’re going to pick up a creature that may bite you.
2) Rabies is deadly, the shots hurt and bats are really cute up close.
3) Addington Hospital is old and falling apart, but the staff are efficient and friendly.
4) South Africa’s culture of drinking is very concerning. I’m not talking about your dad who get drunk on week nights or your mates who drink just to get drunk. I’m talking about the people who drink their life away and act violently towards one another.

To find out more about how serious rabies is, check out this link: http://bit.ly/1llOol5

This Isn’t My Body

I’ve always had issues with my body. Only now when I sit back and think about it do I realise that I’ve never been truly content with the way I look. I’m sure there are hundreds of girls that could say the same thing, but this is my blog, so this is my story.

When I was younger, around 16, I used to get myself so upset about things that in hindsight seem so stupid. I used to worry about not being womanly enough. I worried that my body would remain a little girl’s - no curve, no breasts, just a skinny little child’s body.

My worries stemmed from the fact that girls much younger than me were filling out. They were voluptuous vixens with cleavage that showed no mercy, while I remained a cup size ‘A.’

Things started to change when I left my teen years behind. I started dating a guy who was obsessed with gym and living a so-called healthy lifestyle. He wasn’t one of the bubble muscled, steroid kids of today. He was just very conscious of his own weight – and unfortunately mine.

As I said before, my body issues started a long time ago, so I can’t blame my issues on anyone. However, that’s not to say other people’s influences haven’t affected me.

It all started in jest of course, he’d tease me about eating the ‘right’ food and choosing a salad when we went to dinner. As we became more comfortable with each other it got worse, he’d comment on how I made our dinners too fatty, he told me I should gym a lot more and….

Then came the nickname “CHUNKY MONKEY!”

Yes, it all sounds very cute, but you have no clue how it affected me. It broke my heart, not only did I have a body of a child, now I was a chubby child.

Things changed. “CHUNKY MONKEY” guy and I went our separate ways. Very shortly after the break-up my life went pear shaped and I was put on medication that turned me into “FAT COURTENEY.”

No really. I went from a size SS to M, in less than two months. At this point you’re probably rolling your eyes at me - but just think of the effect that this had on me emotionally. I had to give away almost all of my clothes and replace my entire wardrobe, just so I could breath while wearing jeans.

So now, I’m “FAT COURTENEY” and I have a new wardrobe, but just when I’m starting to deal with my weight issues, I started dating another idiot boyfriend who thought it was alright to tell me “You know Babe, you’d be beautiful if you lost two, maybe three kgs.”

Well there went myself esteem, if I had any to begin with.

The hardest part of all of this is that I still think I’m skinny Courteney. I forget how big I am and then when I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror or a shiny surface, I instantly feel less sexy. I then get really angry with myself because I know my weight shouldn’t be such an issue.

There are girls and guys out there that have been struggling with these issues their whole lives. I feel ashamed for not feeling beautiful when I realize my actual size.

So ex-boyfriends who had something to say about my body, ‘up yours.’ From now on I’m going to try and be more positive – and feel sexier. At least now I have a real women’s body, with cleavage!

Image source:http://www.pinterest.com/pin/531072981029679001/

Airport Blues

Sometimes we learn life lessons from other people’s mistakes. Sometimes their mistakes impact us so greatly we become wiser and more mature because of them.

Nothing short of a teenage love story - I was completely and utterly in love with someone who loved me just as much.

Lets call him X.

X was a year older than me and went to a very well known all boys’ school. He was my absolute hero; I went to every one of his rugby games I could get to. I even attended events at his school, just so I could see him.

X and I were together for almost two years – an extremely long time in teenage years. We were so well known that his whole school knew about us, every single boy knew I was X’s – and even the nearby girls’ school knew X was mine.

This is where the story gets interesting. I had moved to my new school and X expressed fear that I would meet someone else and leave him – As if! I loved him to infinity and beyond! But this wasn’t the 1^st time he had shown me how insecure he was about me leaving him.

I assured him that nothing of the sort would happen and we continued to be the happy, slightly infamous, couple we had always been.

At my new school, I met a giant of a boy, lets call him L. L and I soon became friends. My small statue meant that L could literally pick me up, along with my heavy schoolbag, walk to my class and drop me off. But, the sad thing about this day and age is that young men and women can’t be close friends without society trying to put labels on them.

X knew of this tomfoolery. In fact, I had introduced X to L at one of my birthday parties and they got on well.

X’s parent’s lived inland, so he would go home during the holidays. This particular time was the June/July school holidays and I was to meet him at the airport, to give him a gift to take home to his mother.

Once I had got to the airport, I met up with him, but something was wrong, I could see it in his face. X’s big brown eye’s had the ability to smile at you even when his mouth wasn’t, but this time there was no smile, not on his face and not in his eyes.

I don’t remember the exact words, all I remember is feeling like my heart had been pulled from my chest with the help of a sickle. He didn’t give me a reason as to why he had broken my heart.

He walked away, caught his flight and refused to speak to me at all.

I lay a tiny little ball on the floor, tears streaming down my face, watching strange faces passing me, none of them stopping to offer me any comfort. My mom came rushing towards me and scooped me up off the floor. I remember blubbering in the bathroom, asking why he left me, why he didn’t love me anymore.

It was only three years later that I found out why.  One of X’s best friends and rugby teammates had a girlfriend in my school. She had witnessed L’s little ritual of taking me to class by throwing my bag and myself over his shoulder. Using what she had seen, she fabricated a story about spotting me at a club and kissing L – an image I, to this day, find disturbing because L is like a gigantically tall brother to me.

In X’s defense, there was apparently a crappy cell phone video to accompany her story. X’s best friend and his best’s girlfriend had come to X with this so-called ‘evidence’ and because of his insecurities he believed them - even though I had never ever given him a reason not to trust me.

The moral of this story is to never take things at face value, ask questions because nothing anyone says is gospel. Find out for yourselves.

If X had only asked me, if someone had only questioned the ‘evidence,’ maybe there would have been two less heartbroken teenagers in the world.

For the man I’ll always love, you know who you are

Image Source: http://www.celebquote.com/9259

Casting Pearls Before Swine

If there’s one lesson I’ve learnt in life, its that sometimes it’s best to hold your tongue. And sometimes I’ve literally had to hold my tongue between my teeth in order to restrain myself.

I’m the type of person who can’t stand injustice, but the problem with that is that I think I have to come to everyone’s rescue even when I’m not wanted.

My mother always told me not to case pearls before swine, a phrase I never truly understood as a child. What she meant was that I shouldn’t waste my time on those who won’t appreciate the value you have to offer.

Going back to my first experience when the concept of casting pearls before swine became apparent to me was when I was in high school.  Now you’re probably all thinking I’m going to tell a sad sob story about the mean girls who wouldn’t sit with me. Well, they didn’t, but this story isn’t about that.

It was actually a teacher who was the swine in this case.

It was a drama lesson and we were reviewing our fellow classmates performances of various Biblical stories we had to interpret and turn into morality plays.

During my review of one of the class favourites I mentioned that maybe she should submerge herself in her character, Adam the first man, because to me Adam was still sounding a lot like a teenage girl and ‘his’ mannerisms were incredibly feminine.

Almost immediately, I was told to keep quiet, by the adult who was meant to be our mentor, because what I had just said was “the most unintelligent thing he had ever heard.” He then proceeded to tell me, in front of the entire class no less, that I would never be as good of an actress as my classmate.

Little did he know…

Shortly after moving schools, because of the mean girls you all thought this story was going to be about, I joined the drama department at my new school. I was not going to let one bitter old man’s words interfere with my passion and love of theatre.

He was no only terribly wrong, I shone brighter than I ever expected. I ignored his words, but never forgot them and they drove me to push myself to be the best, not only did I win best actress in Matric, I received full colours for drama, and I was one of the leads in our schools musical, yes me. I sang my little heart out for months and practiced my choreography until my poor dance partner got dizzy.

The point of this story is not that I had a crappy teacher who was rude and said hurtful things, the point of this story it to show you that sometimes you cast your pearls before swine and they get trampled in the mud, but sometimes you need to evaluate your situation. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying you shouldn’t voice your opinion and have your say - I’m saying be wise enough to know what to say and when to say it.