Journey

Preface

Outside the ice cold hospital’s casualty in the isolated bushy shrub outskirts of a small town in South Aftica, I stood drained and exhausted like a lost cave man roaming the scorching dessert for months.

Like I had come out of a boxing match with Mike Tyson,my fatigue could only be described as a battered bruised body.

Bloodshot red eyes ,eyelids like sack potatoes and legs as wobbly as freshly cooked spaghetti or like a beginner ice skating for the first time on thick ice.

At 2:00am with the cold air causing me to shiver I met a short black stocky man brought by the agitated policeman for drunken driving.

This man named Bongani staggering with his untamed dreadlocks,jovially greats me with his beer heavy breath and with a child like grin shouts“Alcohol always brings me bad luck doc!!" .

The white policeman Sargent Botha after hearing Bongani begins to boil in anger. His tall big rhino frame accompanied by a thick ginger red moustache brought deadly fear into my heart .

Only an insane man would not be afraid but "fortunately" Bongani was too blissfully drunk to care. Sargent Botha angrily pushes Bongani forecefully,like a passenger taking lift of on a plane .

His body is thrown onto the small single examining bed coverd by the stained white bed sheet for alchol blood collection.

The tightly wrapped bronze iron bar shackles around Bongani's naked dry ankles ,hit the ground loudly like thunder. Combined with the orange flickering dim lights,Iam sadly denied any opportunity to rest as I wearily take the blood from Bongani's chicken thin arms.

This heart racing captivating entertainment kept me up, from Sunday till the misty Monday morning.

By midday on Monday,my body after enduring this 36 hour battering had decided to throw in the white towel.My big silky soft relaxing king size bed ,was the only destination left after this long bruising day.

Usually 5 minutes was all it took for me to get home as I stay in the Doctors quarters which is a stone throw away from casuslty.Sadly the walk home felt longer than queuing at a atm at the end of the month.

Like an enourmas powerfull elephant grasped and slowly immobilized by a large anaconda,I felt my energy being drained by this “Snake of fatigue “.Each step I took suffocates and cripples me slowly.

The sad reality is that irrespective of how you look ,feel and patients can hear from your slow low tone that you are tired . “People will always need your help”.Doctors are superheroes in their own right, without red capes but snow white labcoats.

Sadly this superhero had to fly home.