So, I headed out to find my new security guard friends at the Trauma Unit and we bonded over a cigarette in the car park out of sight of the cameras.  Only in a hospital would there be cameras to detect illegal smokers!!  There were at least 5 Cape Flats gang members sitting in the waiting room, probably armed to the teeth and in possession of a multitude of illegal substances, but they will happily bust a person for smoking next to the ambulance bay.

At 7.30 a doctor I had never seen came in to examine my breast.  At Groote Schuur, you only ever see a doctor once, as they seem to rotate on an hourly basis.  I am merely assuming he was a doctor, as he just looked at my breast and left.  Knowing my luck, he was some pervert who ambles around the hospital posing as a doctor who specialises in breast exams.  Come to think of it, he seemed disappointed after the exam, but I could have told him that there is nothing much to see here.

Since the start of this ordeal, more people have seen my breasts at that hospital than in my entire life.  It is so bad now that at the sight of anyone with a stethoscope I prepare myself to haul it out on request!!  Later, my surgeon and 12 foetuses who are now addressed as Doctor, but known as interns, did their rounds.  They all walked in, looked at me and left.  Maybe the earlier pervert was really a doctor and had given them the feedback they needed.

At 8.30 the breakfast trolley arrived.  I was given a white porridge with milk and half a ton of white sugar on it, two slices of government issue brown bread with margarine, a hard-boiled egg with a green yolk and milky, sweet tea.  If I didn’t have diabetes before my hospital stay, I’ve definitely got it now.  I couldn’t face the porridge, so settled for the bread and egg which incidentally gave me hiccoughs for the next half an hour.

After breakfast and a bowl bath, I convinced my room-mate, Susan (the diabetic with a drain in her breast) that she needed some fresh air.  Actually, I needed a smoke and she was a good fall-guy – the sisters are most disapproving of us wandering the halls in pursuit of a nicotine fix.  We put her drain in a packet and trundled off to the other side of the hospital in our gowns and slippers only to be confronted by a large choir belting out songs in honour of World Aids Day.  Fresh air, cigarettes and entertainment – it doesn’t get any better than this.  Unfortunately, Susan was ecstatic to be out of the ward and I couldn’t get her to come back inside.  After my fifth cigarette, the novelty of sharing a bench with someone’s drip stand had worn off and I wanted to get back to my bed.

When we got back to the ward, a woman from Reach for Recover was waiting for me.   She was lovely and we chatted for a while about breast cancer and what more I had to look forward to on my road to recovery.  She left me with some great literature, a sponge thingy for arm exercises, a little cushion to put under my arm to ease the pain and a little bag, which someone like Susan would use to carry her drain.  As I don’t have a drain, the bag is perfect to carry my cigarettes and cellphone.  She wasn’t too excited about this suggestion, but left the bag with me anyway.

My mom arrived just before lunch to help me pack up.  They brought the lunch around 12.30 and I was quite excited to see how they had managed to make perfectly good ingredients inedible.  I wasn’t disappointed.  Two pieces of boerewors (Halaal), dry rice with a teaspoon of tomato sauce and khaki beans lay forlornly on the plate.  I did try – but I couldn’t eat more than a mouthful.

I was told I would be discharged that day, but no-one could give me a time.  It all seems to depend on when the pharmacy can dispense one’s medication.  Given the delays, I was quite excited that I would be going home with a veritable cornucopia of drugs to keep me comfortable and sedated for the next week.  Boy was I in for a disappointment.  The sister arrived with my discharge papers, some Panado and another pain killer called Tramadol.  That was the sum total of my drugs.  How it took them an entire morning to find 15 tablets, I have no idea.

Needless to say, the nurse had barely finished handing the two little packets over and we threw things into bags, I got dressed and we left the hospital.  I survived public hospital care!  Although, the long term psychological effects remain to be seen.