Camping out...fitting in:

Now we had not been camping since Hlalanathi in January. So, come end of April, we were thrilled to join our good friends, the Froises, for a long weekend at Villa Spa on the South Coast. It was great to be out again since my op, even if I was not all that active. The kids have a ball as always and Lee and I get to relax in a kind of holiday spirit, setting aside all the trials of every other day life.

All was going well until about 2.00am Monday morning. I awoke, certain I was battling to breathe...yet I was breathing. My throat felt constricted, but wasn't. I eventually wondered if my chest was carrying excess fluid and putting pressure on my lungs...or was I just imagining the whole thing? As you do when you are sitting alone in darkness in the middle of the night and battling to breathe, I woke my spouse up! Poor Lee had to sit alongside me in bed, trying to stay awake and concerned, but being constantly pulled back into dreamland. I eventually put it out my head, raised myself on pillows somewhat, then joined her.

I felt OK by sunrise and was later enjoying the early morning sun out by the fire, (well, the braaistand at least). I was still in my pj's sipping a cappuccino on my camp-chair. The boys were poking coals in the warmth of last night's fire and Lee was seated nearby, sipping tea. Katie was up to something between us. At one moment, Jason and I were looking up at a little bird on a nearby tree...and that is my last memory prior to waking in an ambulance!

Lee says it started with a jerking of my head. Then a shaking and stiffening of my arms which spilt coffee all over me. She no longer thought I was joking when my whole body straightened suddenly and I launched myself backward over my chair. I could tell later that my forehead and left eye took the brunt of the landing. Lee was horrified with what she saw. My tongue was sticking out, I was frothing at the mouth, and jerking, and she says my eyes were filled with fear and begging for help. Mercifully, I remember none of it at all and was not aware of it at the time either. I only wish I could say the same for my kiddies.

She was eventually able to procure some nurses who were also guests at the campsite, though there were no doctors. These knowledgeable ladies calmed Lee down and gave her an assurance that I was only having a seizure...not a heart attack...and that I would come out of it shortly. Twenty five minutes after my 'sprayed cockroach' routine I was being lifted into the back of an ambulance. This is my first recollection of any memory and I remember the paramedic and the trip well. I even wanted to go back to my caravan once we got to hospital cos I was now 'fine'! I must say, despite having to need an ambulance, the trip was fun. We dodged traffic with siren blaring and driver swearing!

My ambulance trip ended with two or three nights in ICU for observation. Always fun in those wards cos you gotta eat, sleep and exist with flipping cords, cables and electrodes attached everywhere from ankles to chest! So, it turns out that my high blood pressure was the cause of the seizure, coupled of course with the general poor condition of my body. Brain scans showed no other evils, thankfully, though it was nice that they found a brain! Anyway, ICU then gave way to a general ward which eventually became my bed at home. All has gone well since, at least in the seizure department that is. Now, when I feel a strange sensation at night, when I wake up panting in the dark...I reach over to Lee and "seize-her"!