You won’t believe my mom.

She managed to break Internet Explorer and Facebook simultaneously. How the hell?

My god.

A coupla whiney girl things that I need to vent.

Tin Foil.  It’s my current life’s obsession and mystery.  They can put a monkey in space, a man on the moon, invent the internet, have people talking through microphones across the world – but cannot come up with a simpler way to utilise the offending silver paper to wrap a salad bowl?  Let me ask you something.

• Have you ever tried to tear tin foil in a straight line having only the use of one hand*? IMPOSSIBLE.
  
• Have you ever tried to cut tin foil with a pair of scissors? INSTANT FAIL.

Truly.  It’s the most annoying thing ever.  Why not make it easy man?  Why put it in such a stupid little box with stupid faux little “teeth” if they don’t work?

Flowers. What a waste of money.  I understand it’s a symbol of compassion and empathy for your situation, but why?

1. They rot in days.
2. They then stink.
3. They’re a pain in the ass to get rid of (who fits a whole boquet of blomme in the bin anyway?)
4. They require a) water (admin) and then b) trimming (admin) followed by c) actual contact with slimy stems when you throw them away (double admin.  And ewww)
5. Don’t send me flowers.  I hate them.  Rather send airtime.  Or, I dunno.  Condoms…

My Mother. She’s done this thing.  For years.  She’ll start talking about someone as if you know them.  When you remind her you don’t she’ll be all “oh man, but she’s Soandsos mother.  She saw you in the spar that one time ten years ago.  Anyway, you’ll never guess…” And then she’s off.  Unstoppable.  It drives me batshit crazy.  Fifteen minutes later I’ll still be sitting there, missing most of the information, trying to fathom who the hell she is talking about.  In the end I feel dumb and that’s not cool, Mom.  Not cool.

Disrespecting my personal bubble space. Firstly, I’m back in my family home.  With 4 kids in it.  Hasn’t been like this since I was, like, 18 or something.  We’re all grown up except for Wokkie and we’re battling.  The boys aren’t small enough for me to pulverize like I used to. And the gang up on me.  And they fart and shout and play PS2 all the time.  But worst of all, they won’t allow me to watch E! Entertainment.

Then on top of that, I have a small issue where I’m trying to break up a four year long friendship with someone I shouldn’t have stayed with in the first place.  And it’s not being respected.  So not only is my room in jeapordy of filthy boy socks or the lounge covered in junk food and a million coffee cups, but my head is filled with the words from emails begging me to talk, to not do this, to not break a heart.  It’s over.  Why can’t people accept it when I need space?

/end rant.

*apologises profusely, doesn’t really mean it but says it to be polite*

I’d like to point you all …

.. over to my very professional and mature article on NerdMag about politics.  Yes, I’m being “for real”.  I have some thoughts that don’t involve food, sex or boys sometimes you know….

Go over here and leave me a comment. I need reassurance of my brilliance.  But I’m also genuinely interested in hearing your thoughts.

Paying off old debts.

I’m a good sibling.  In fact, I’d go as far as to say one of the best.  One the planet. But so are my siblings.  We’re a formiddable team and feel very sorry for anyone who has to break into our very exclusive circle of closeness.  One of the bigger times I ever noticed this as much was when I was pregnant.

My brothers and sisters knew before my parents. They were ecstatic to be aunts and uncles.  They knew before my friends even.  And I remember Dazz (I think he was about 13 at the time) boasting to his friends and even 5 year old Wok who barely even understood the concept of pregnancy.  They used to take turns lying on my stomach listening out for baby’s hiccups.  My sisters were adoring, loving and very excited. With Kiera alive, they all took turns in being the other parent.  They couldn’t wait to get home to be with us.  Even my brother Brandon and all his rugby friends in matric would come round to play with her and let me sleep or read.  When Kiera was sick, my siblings lined up to have their blood taken to see who would match her for a transfusion.  Brandon won, and he was so honoured he could help his little niece.

When she died, I wanted to die too.  Not just because I’d lost my baby girl, but because my family was broken as a whole.  I wanted to be with them, but I couldn’t face the rawness of their pain.  Everytime I tried to cry, they would cry too.  In trying to heal me, they were hiding their own sadness, and vice versa. It took years of practice for us to be able to talk about her, smile about a story without choking up for each other.  But we did it, we got there.

So it’s when my brother looks up at me and says “I owe you Sheen, you’re doing so much for me” that I look down to him and silently cry inside.  He gave his blood for my daughter.  He allowed for her to live so that I and my other siblings could share in her life for another 7 months of her life.  He loved her like I’ve never seen.  And he loved me through out all my bad decisions and choices.  He helped me get back to normality and he completes our circle of closeness.  The Ross/Gates Clan wouldn’t be the same without Brandon.  He owes me nothing.  He gave my daughter that extra length of time.  And thats more than I could have ever asked for.  In this life time or the next.

I take care of him because I can.  And because in some way, in some small miniscule little contributing way – I feel I’m finally able to thank him properly.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – what a motherbitch.

Paranoia.  It’s a symptom of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  And we all have it something chronic.  Brandon is overly anxious about everyone’s safety.  Everytime I leave him to go to the shops / choose dvd’s / fetch laundry from downstairs he hits a flat spin and I have to sms him to say I’m safe.  And it’s not just with me, it’s everyone.  We all have to constantly reassure him everything is okay.  He refuses to have counselling, so I’ve resorted to forcing him now.  That bitch is strong, but I’m stronger baby!

Some of the lighter side of PTSD?  I am constantly positive there’s something wrong, or about to go wrong, or just has gone wrong.  This morning I accidentally inhaled a seed when I was feeding the birds outside.  Not only did I nearly choke to flipping death, have tears running down my cheeks and snivveled a runny nose, but one hour later I read about some dude who had a FIR TREE GROWING IN HIS LUNGS!  Obtained, naturally – as it happens – by inhaling a seed one year previously.  I shit you not.  This did not help with my paranoia obviously, as am now one hundred and millionty percent that I will have to have an internal lung mini tree trimmed and pruned by Winter next year.

The bearded gheko we have on our deck looked a bit bleak this afternoon, so Wokkie calls my mom over in absolute panic – “Mom! FAT BOY IS DEPRESSED! JUST LIKE BRANDON! LOOK AT HIS SAD EYES! Must I give him one of Baboo’s happy pills?” it turned out that the cold blooded reptile was just kipping under his rock like he does every single day.

Darryn was working last night (he manages a restuarant just down the drag) and ended up going jolling with a few mates.  He crawled in at 6am to a beside-ourselves bunch of lunatics who all jumped down his throat before he was in the front door.  Needless to say he is hanging lower than a pair of donkeys testicles, and my mom is going into his room every ten minutes to take his temperature and wakes him up to make sure he’s not dead.

Gawd.  We’ve always been known as The Treehouse* of Nutters but now we’re really ringing true to the name.  Send strength!

*My parents are lucky enough to own a gigantic log cabin tree house.

The reality of it all. Growing up sucks.

I remember writing something last year some time but for the life of me, cannot find the damned post.  It was about how, just as my brother Wokkie had lost his last milk teeth he’d carefully wrapped them in toilet paper and placed them into a shoe, clearly expecting to wake up the next morning and find the obligatory ten buck note as a replacement the next morning.

He’d gone about putting a little tiny shot glass of milk out right next to a plate full of bread crumbs and even a little pillow next to his bedside table, much like other kids do for Santa on Christmas Eve.  Later that night, my parents were fast asleep and snoring when my mom suddenly woke up screaming her head off.  Kev threw off the linen and jumped up, totally naked sans his polka dotted sleep shorts, fully ready to take heads off shoulders. 

My mom, by this stage, had jumped right on top of the bed hopping from one foot to the next, hysterically pointing to a little mouse scuttling over the duvet.  As I ran through to their bedroom and took in the scenario, I recalled my other brother Dazz mentioning that he’d “misplaced” his snake’s food.  Yes, you guessed it, a mouse.  Remembering my mothers phobia for the vermin, Kev wasted no time in snatching the creature up by his tail and whacking it against the wall which lead to the mouse being stunned into paralysis.

By now, Wokkie had run through to the room to find out what the commotion was all about.  Looking around frantically, he laid eyes on the dead mouse and with a very confused look upon his face looked from my mom to his dad.  Realisation dawned on him soon enough and with disgust, anger and trauma in his eyes and voice, he screamed: “YOU KILLED THE TOOTH MOUSE FAIRY!”.

Fast forward one year, he tells me that since we killed the last of his childhood fantasies, he cannot believe in the Easter Bunny, because not only is the idea of a fluffly bunny delivering eggs out of a basket “gay” but also, ”it’s lame, Sheen, why can’t you guys make it cooler – like Ben Ten or the Pokemon dudes delivering the chocolates or something?” try as I might, I think the littlest one is growing up too fast to believe everything I or the other older siblings tell him. 

Remembering all of this, today I was reminded of why getting older is hard.  Fantasies are replaced with responsibility, imagination is limited by reality and most emo of all, when you’re 25 you don’t qualify for an Easter egg hunt apparently.  I’m quite pissed about that.

Happy day of Jesus dying and rising, y’all.

Strength is in the eye of the beholder. And also in my brother.

Okay so this is Brandon graduating from the ICU (shriek of excitement and gratitude!):

And this his his cheesy ass grin when we wheeled him into his new private room in a general ward:

Check the lame little goatee,  I cannot tell you enough how much he looks like my dad with this new facial hair thing he has going on.  He’s put on about five years just in looks! But it got to the point where it was too painful for them to shave in that area, so the nurse turned it into some love fluff.

Right.  So, the nasty stuff: He hates being so dependant.  It’s driving him dilly and whilst I try my utmost to keep his dignity in tact, I can see it’s the little things that embarrass him about not having the ability to just get up to go to the loo, clean his own nose, feed himself with utensils…  He’s frustrated as hell because he cannot determine how long his recovery will take and no one else can answer it, the fact is – it’s all up to him.  Which is all rather fucking pressurising for a 22year old if you ask me.  Especially a 22year old with recent lead implants to his head and a hole in his chest.  But whatevs.

On the plus side – he BATHED HIMSELF TODAY! and stood up and plonked himself in a chair claiming to be sick of “that stupid bloody bed”. Right after he asked for a wheel chair to use the toilet.  His right hand side of his face is uber sensitive and cannot be touched, but his arm is working (just very weak) and he’s starting to move his leg a bit here and there.  He stood up today on the zimmer frame and is determined to walk out of this hospital unaided.  His positivity and determination astounds me, truly.    I’m sitting in the bed next to him (he has his own room in the neuro ward) while he sleeps and i am just so goddamned proud of him i could squeal.

Emotionally, he’s opened up to me and talked me through the events of the shoot out. He’s petrified of the dark all of a sudden and refuses to be left alone, hence the reason i’m here in his room. The new ward in this hospital is amazing, they’ve pretty much welcomed me with open arms.  Probably because he causes such a scene when i’m not here its easier for them to ignore the no visitors policy and let me hang out in here all day.

I’m pretty stoked, I have a bed instead of a couch to sleep on, full access to plugs so i can charge my blackberry and more important than everything, a smoking room right next door so I don’t ever have to leave him for too long.

It’s been a good day. I’m on such a high with life and i’m so grateful that he’s come so far in such a short time.  We’re all ecstatic.  Day 8 and the dude amazes us with each passing hour.  He’s had so much support from everyone and each message is being passed along, so keep the positivity coming!

Feelings going on

Fear

The look on his face when I walk into the ICU and he’s being held down by three nurses because morphine has him convinced that they’re trying to kill him and sell his body on a ship and he’s trying to fling himself from the hospital bed to escape. This morphine is horrid.  What’s worse is the trauma he’s going through waking up and not remembering anything thanks to his head injury.  Having to explain where he is, promising over and over that it is, in fact, a hospital he’s in and not a car park (I think he is remembering scenes from the night of the shooting subconsciously) has become normal practice.

Hope

The way he moves his right leg when he doesn’t realise he needs to, but when it counts he can’t.  He feels sensations and tickling and scratching but has no control over the right side of his body.  This is due to his head injury and where the bullet nicked his brain.  It’s the section that controls all his motorskills.  We’re hopeful that his paralysis is temporary and will go away once the swelling has gone down.

Shock

Walking out of the ICU after an hour and a half of calming him down, running through facts over and over and over and over again with him, just to keep him in bed and not running away from whatever hallucinated monster/criminal/wild animal he is currently seeing in his mind.  Being covered in his blood after he rips out his pipes in one of his fits.  Hearing him scream with pain when the nurse turns him over so he doesn’t get bed sores.  Listening to the endless alarms and sirens in that environment from five years back.  Collapsing in a heap after two hours of crisis in his ICU.  Shaking too much to light a cigarette or drink tea.

Grief

Families who spend hours upon hours in the waiting room eventually turn to each other for support in the recovery of their own respective loved ones.  One such family was that of the MacKay’s.  Shaun’s family.  The Brumbie Boy, as he has come to be known to all of us.  Our moms comforted each other during the early hours of the first morning and said that our boys would walk out of here and one day shake hands and laugh at their neurotic mommas.  Shaun passed away this morning at 2:54am.  We are devestated for his parents Lee and John and his long time girlfriend Trish, who’m I shared the overly sized couch with numerous times over the last week.  It’s just not right.

Paranoia

Worried about infections passed, stressed about getting sick myself (who will translate to the parentals then?  Who will bath Brand?) and listening to Brandon talking to invisible children and singing along to unheard rock songs that are being played too loudly in his head – is he going mad permanently?  Is it really just a temporary insanity?

Relief

That it wasn’t our loved one who died today.  That he’s still talking, even if it is just to moan or tell me about the space rangers shooting lazer guns or to tell my dad to have the car packed and prepared, just in case we need to escape in a hurry.

Everything.  All at once.  All the time.  But I wouldn’t have it any other way if it meant I’d have lost my brother.

But for the grace of support…

It’s in the quiet moments where I sit and contemplate how the outcome of Brandon’s drama could have actually been had the doctors not said he’d live.  It’s in the silence where I imagine trying to keep my younger brother Dazz’s spirits up without having Baboo there to support him in the way he does so well, usually, or imagining what my mother would be like without her FC darling boy… he always made up where Dazz and I messed up, he truly was an angel child and do-gooder.  It’s when I hold my brother’s hand while he sleeps and look at him wincing in pain, moaning and fighting off bad dreams that I pray to the universe / God / some entity with utter appreciation and gratitude that my brother is alive and is experiencing this instead of the nothingness that comes with death.

It’s in the darkness of the hospital waiting room, on the couch, while everyone sleeps that I try and control the angry tears that pour down my face.  Thoughts flow like a river:  How can someone disregard a life so easily and without thought?  That man is dead now, I wonder what his family must be thinking.  Would they be told the truth?  Have they identified his body?  Did he have children?  Will they grow up to live the same wayward lifestyle?  What will we South African’s be like in ten years time if crime is this bad now?

It’s in the glare of the early morning sunlight that I smile down as he gets frustrated with the straw not getting his apple juice into his mouth fast enough.  He’s unable to do anything for himself just yet, but we’ve created a ‘Chop code’ for when he needs stuff done and he’s too tired to talk.  One blink for ‘yes’, two for ‘no’, hand squeeze for ‘I love you’.  He squeezes our hands a lot.  He’s doing so well, I don’t know how, but he is doing so well. My heart is so warm and I am so grateful.  We all are.