Tag Archives: cancer

May 10, 2011 · 11:49 am

My First Time With Cancer

I have two daughters and since their birth I have been very very health conscious.

We ate veggies, stayed away from sugars and fats. We exercised and did everything right. So I thought. As young adults, they moved to Cape town.  I divorced and decided to move to Cape Town too. Very excited at the prospect of a new life I went all out to prove myself.

I bought a flat, a new car, and worked really hard at my job. I am a psychiatrist. One fine day, or windy day, or rainy day that Cape Town always experiences I got up and literally said aloud to no one in particular (as I was alone) “I hate what I am doing” I was 58 and successful and earning good money. I was independent.  I loved Cape Town. I loved the amazing dance workshops and programmes that I attended.

Yet I hated the work that I did. I was competent and excellent in what I did. But I hated getting up every morning, driving in the Cape Town traffic and getting to work.  I hated the concept of the  psychiatry that was the prevailing paradigm. My training and the prevailing paradigm was based on Newtonian mechanisms and biological treatments.

There was no soul or spirit in it. My soul and spirit yearned for the spirituality and soul that for me was the underlying process in many people who suffered from “psychiatric ” illnesses.

I felt trapped as I was unable to see a way out. I had spent money in training as a medical doctor and then specializing as a psychiatrist. I didn’t want to be a burden on anyone. I had to still earn a living.  These thoughts kept going on and on in my head. I spoke to my children and they kept saying  “you are earning so well”, so why rock the boat. In my heart I kept feeling that I could not justify  the huge flaws that I saw in conventional psychiatric methodology. One of which was prescribing medications that inevitably caused side effects

Over the months I began having weird symptoms and tiredness. I chalked it down to stress.  Then the bleeding began. With it the rounds of tests, and investigations and Doctors. One doctor after doing his tests informed me that I had nothing to worry about.  The gyaenacologist however was a different matter. She phoned and said  “I am sorry to say…….”

So I being a doctor myself got my results.  I checked them, and my first thought was —– Yippee  I do not have to do psychiatry any more !!!!!    I have a very legitimate way out.  I knew that I had to take care of the cancer and sort it out. But I also knew that I would be ok. It’s as if my soul did the only thing it could, to get me out and protect me.

I went back to my home town, and had the surgery. I didn’t need any thing else. No medications, no chemotherapy. It is nearly a year now after the incident.  I am healthy, and very active. New vistas have opened for me, involving alternative healing modalities.  I have always been very alternative, and now it’s as if I have been given permission to revel in it without any censure.

Thus I believe that my cancer diagnosis was a friend and a wakeup call to “BE THE CHANGE I WANT TO SEE IN THIS WORLD”

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January 12, 2011 · 10:09 am

The First Time I Laughed Once Again

Motherhood is a rare and precious gift.

Happiness, love, and pride race through my heart, as I marvel at my children. They are extensions of myself, yet individuals in their own right.

I was blessed with two children, but the cruelty of life saw my son taken before his time. At 25 he was diagnosed with cancer, the same disease that ravaged my cervix, leaving my body fragile and my emotions raw.

We were both diagnosed in the same year and I had access to immediate treatment. But the cruel hand of fate intervened and my son was not granted that opportunity. His death came quickly, before his treatment could even begin. But the panic and fear that engulfed me when I was diagnosed, was completely surpassed by the horror of possibly losing my son. Helplessly I watched, as the light faded from his eyes.  This tested my faith, and during the darkest of days, when sadness gripped my soul, the pain and toll of my cancer served to remind me that I was still very much alive.

Slowly I grew stronger.

Daily I prayed for healing and strength and today I live cancer free. It was my daughter and sister who cheered me on, encouraging me to walk with God.  Through grace, I began to see again the light that was once in my son’s eyes. This was later mirrored in the eyes of my first grandchild. A bundle of joy, hope, life and future-willing me to live and laugh once again.

Sebenzile Mngomezulu

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December 10, 2010 · 8:30 am

My First Tribute to the Man in My Life

My grandmother believes that a woman’s value is determined by her ability to find a good husband.  My mother was brought up by threats that her behaviour would drive away men and leave her a spinster, like her pitiful aunts.    My mother relays these stories with a combination of scorn and amusement, but still has been happily married to my wonderful father for 32 years.

I have had no such luck in my love life.  The plan was to go to varsity, meet The One and spend the rest of my life discussing literature with a gorgeous, rich man who has a cute smile and a naughty sense of humour.  But my relationships have always been… complicated, and ended with a fine combination of heart trampling and dream crushing.  It’s scary out there.

I’ve recently started dating a lovely guy – so I’m right back on that road to destruction – and maybe one day I’ll write a similar tribute to him if he can withstand my demanding chocolate addiction and learn to bring me tea in the mornings.  But today I write to thank the man who has consistently been the best person in my life – the man who from my very first day has been everything in the world to me.

My brother was four when I was born and had, for months of my mother’s pregnancy, been carrying around a stick he called his sister.  I think he knew from the outset that this whole brother thing was something he could be good at.

I was spoilt growing up – with home-made bed time stories and helping me to dress me paper dolls (he drew the line at Barbies) and games of marco-polo and hide-and-go-seek when he was far too old to be enjoying them.    I remember every single time he scolded me – when I didn’t say “thank you” to someone for a lift; when I was rude to my mother;  and when I got my first hickey at the tender age of 13.  In high school and varsity he was a typical protective brother, but even when I acted like it annoyed me, really it just made me feel special.

I know that if he could he would protect me from the whole world, but last year I got cancer and no amount of shouting or threatening was going to change that.  So instead, he learnt everything there was to know about my illness and my treatment.  He spent half the year in Johannesburg with me, and half the year on the other side of the country at home with his job and his girlfriend.   He sat with me through hours of chemo; he lay with me as I fell asleep; he did my dishes and my laundry; he read me books on Roman Law; he played endless games of scrabble with me even though his spelling is atrocious; he reminded me to take my temperature every morning and every night, even if he wasn’t with me and had to call.  He held me when I was crying, but most of the time he did a great job of making me laugh.

So today I say thank you to the man who saved my sanity and just may have saved my life – as if I didn’t love you enough already.

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