My eye specialist carried out another round of tests and finally he said to me:
“I don’t know why your eyesight is worsening. I would like a second opinion, and would like you to see my colleague who has more experience with issues effecting the back of eyes.”

After another set of different tests, I finally sat down before the man himself.
“Your optic nerves are thinning, effecting both your eyes. There is a lack of oxygen getting through. Your eye pressure is interestingly normal. Usually I would diagnose this as glaucoma but because of your fall, I can’t be 100% sure. I would like to do a MRI scan. This will hopefully give me a better idea of what is going on.”

I have been wearing cochlear implants, because of my deafness, for the past thirteen years. Would the cochlear implants ‘machinery’ inserted in my skull be alright in a MRI scanner, I wondered. After an enormous amount of to-ing and fro-ing between my audiologist, the eye specialist, and the X-ray department, it was finally decided that a MRI would not be possible. The magnets on either side of my skull would play havoc with the X-ray image. I had the next best thing, a CT scan.

This was done on a Thursday. I could only see my specialist the following Tuesday. Four days seemed a long time when my eyesight was endangered. Thoughts were tossing around my head like pebbles in a rough, windswept stream.
Many years ago, I lost my hearing in an 18 metre fall. I also lost 60% of my eyesight. With my cochlear implants, the world opened it’s door to me once more. That is not to say that I am no longer deaf. When I go to sleep, my CIs are removed and I am as deaf as a door nail.
Alas, they do not have anything equivalent to CIs that work on eyes. I gave a sigh.

People question whether it would be better to be born blind or deaf.
Helen Keller who was both deaf and blind says:
“I am just as deaf as I am blind. The problems of deafness are deeper and more complex, if not more important, than those of blindness. Deafness is a much worse misfortune. For it means the loss of the most vital stimulus – the sound of the voice that brings language, sets thoughts astir, and keeps us in the intellectual company of man”.
How well, I relate to this. I remember sitting at our family’s Christmas table, before my cochlear implants and feeling profoundly lost. I saw everyones lips moving but – silence! It felt as if there was this huge barrier between me and everyone else. I related so utterly to the following comment:

“Sound has an indescribable beauty, touching a person in their inner being in a way that sight can never. It reaches down into the soul of a person and connects them to loved ones, friends, and the environment. People believe that the things they see present immeasurable beauty, but I tell you that the sounds they hear are a million times more beautiful than anything they will ever see: laughter, music, the birds singing, a curtain flapping in the breeze, a lover speaking their name in the night – anything and everything.”

A friend of mine cannot accept that it is better to be blind than deaf.
She says: “If I was blind, I wouldn’t be able to do anything. I wouldn’t be able to ride my bike or sail, play a game of tennis or golf. It would be…unendurable!”
She’s wrong. It is not unendurable. I know. After my fall, I could no longer do those things that I loved to do, that were such a part of my life. You have to simply change your way of life, your way of ‘seeing things’!  Loss of sight cuts you off from THINGS, while loss of hearing cuts you off from PEOPLE.

I love people which was why being stone deaf for eighteen years was an unbelievable nightmare. It was like standing in dark tunnel and being unable to see the light at the end. You can never imagine the feeling of being given back the ability to hear again.
And now the 40% eyesight I treasured so much, had a chance of being taken away.

With my heart thumping in my mouth, I walked into the specialist’s office.
“Gaynor, your scans have shown that there is no cancer or tumour lying in wait. As I originally thought, I believe you have normal pressure glaucoma. This a disease that damages your optic nerves. I think that it is probably caused from your fall. But I can’t be one hundred percent sure. It’s impossible to know.”
So, I have a pretty serious problem with my eyes. The eyesight that I had recently lost would never be given back to me. I would now have to take drops morning and night for the rest of my life.
However, instead of walking out of the consultation feeling down and depressed over the loss of yet more eyesight, I wanted to do this wild ululating shout. I wasn’t due to lose my eyesight next month as I had feared!

Yes, I now had less than 40% eyesight but I could still see. I can still admire the majestic Outeniqua mountains rising regally before me. This morning, while taking Perdita for a walk, I spotted a beautiful grey Heron . His neck crumpled in and then snaked out in a strangely beautiful way. The Autumn reds, cinnamon and  gold trees make my heart sing. The open greeting smile of Mums always puts it’s arms around my heart and squeezes.

We all have a choice as to how we accept ourselves.
I think to myself how lucky I am that I can dance this jive in front of the doctor that said I would never walk again. When I put my cochlear implants on, I can hear once more. I have my spasticity under control most of the time.
And miracle of miracles, I am still able to see the incredible beauty of rainbows!

What people see is influenced by who they are. People in the same room will look at the same things and see everything totally differently…. Each of us has his or her own bent, and that colours our view of everything. What is around us doesn’t determine what we see. What is within us does.

John C. Maxwell

The post Eye Spy! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

The “old Gaynor” could sing, juggle, dance and do cartwheels. She was an energetic, free wheeling spirit. She loved people and enjoyed being loved in return. Onstage it took one step in the wrong direction and that Gaynor vanished forever.

Picture a photograph being developed in a dark room. The photographer has a blank piece of paper which he swirls around in a watery chemical solution. Then he hangs the paper up to dry. As it dries, so shapes begin to emerge out of the blankness. Eventually a photograph shines back at him.

After my fall, I was like that blank piece of paper lying submerged. I needed to be gently swirled in a ‘watery solution’. My family, my friends, my therapists twirled, spun and whirled me gently to and fro. And then I was delicately hung out to dry. And gradually the new Gaynor began to take shape and form. 

This Gaynor is in love with life. She appreciates life in a totally new way.
Isn’t it strange how when something is taken away, and then given back in a new form, it becomes so incredibly valuable.

I lost 60% of my eyesight.
What I now see is so precious to me. In the morning, coffee in hand, I cast my eyes up towards the mountains in George. Every day they say good morning to me in a different form. This morning they rose up majestically into this amazing blue sky. All around grey rocks broke the blue skyline in craggy peaks. They reminded me of great, gentle dinosaurs that had been solidified into rock. I imagined them opening their eyes, stretching out and lumbering to their feet. But that would not happen today, I smiled, as I made my way back towards my coffee pot.
I remember the specialist showing me a scan of my brain. He pointed out the brain cells that controlled my sight.
“Why they weren’t all killed off is anyone’s guess!” he mused.
The sky, the little old woman crossing the road, the new bud on my rose, a babies eyes focusing on the world, my dog and cockatiel gazing at each other in a lovehate relationship, the stars at night…….
I can see!

For 18 years after my fall, I was deaf. Now with my Cochlear Implants the world has opened itself up to me once more. I adore the sound of birds twittering amongst themselves. I will never treat bird song as I used to, taking it for granted. Children laughing and shouting together. The sound of Mums’ voice. Perdita, my dog’s little snores. The wind blowing the leaves on a tree.
Isn’t sound an awe-inspiring thing? And just think, when the neighbours are being unbelievably raucous, I am able to take my Cochlear Implants off – total silence.
Laugh – what bliss!!!
Isn’t it amazing that Cochlear Implants were invented 35 years ago. I went deaf 30 years ago. How lucky can you get?

I now walk with a brace on my spastic right leg. This prevents me from over extending. It makes walking that much easier because it stops me swaying sideways. Perdita, the dog that shares a home with me and I often walk a kilometre up to Ground Control, the best coffee house in the world! I sit there, Perdita contentedly sitting beside me, sipping a cafe latte and work on my blog. An hour later we will stroll home again. No pain in my back because at long last I am walking upright! 

I am laughing at myself. In my thirties, there would have been no way that I ever would have considered putting this brace onto my body. Why is it that at 58 years of age, it doesn’t bother me? Have I given up on attempting to look beautiful or have I gained a little wisdom over the years?

Wasn’t I fortunate to have been born into a family such as mine? Their unending love and support has played a large part towards making me what I am today.  Mums is an incredible person. I am so grateful for her determination, sheer stubbornness and unending love. She raised her daughter twice! Thank you to all my friends. When I first got out of hospital, I remember lying in bed and thinking to myself: There is NO WAY that people will want to remain friends with a deaf, spastic person who can’t even walk!
Wasn’t I wrong! Not only do I have all my friends of old, I also have a whole host of others.
I couldn’t survive without my family.
I couldn’t survive without my friends.

Why did God allowed my fall to happen? I have realised that while I am on this earth I am never going to get an answer to that question. Make no mistake, one day when I am sitting having a G and T with God in Heaven, He is going to have a lot of explaining to do!
Seriously though, my fall happened through the stupidity of man. God had nothing to do with it. I am so very aware that I wouldn’t be as I am today if it wasn’t for this incredible God who has been holding my hand and steering me through life. The good and the bad, God is always there.

Starting over can be one of the scariest things in the world.
With the one step off stage, I began that process. A new Gaynor was born. I often long for the old Gaynor. But thirty years on, the new Gaynor looks at this wonderful, treacherous, generous, unreliable, beautiful, unpredictable world of ours and says:
“Isn’t Life great?”

The post 30 Years! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

“Looking but not seeing is the hearing but not understanding of the eye.”
           ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Before my fall, there were two things about myself of which I was certain:
I had great eyes and thick ankles!!!!!
I had big blue eyes that were framed in long dark eyelashes. I used my eyes to engage people, flirt with them, speak with them, argue with them and laugh with them. My eyes were my contact with the world. Thank goodness they say that eyes are the centre to one’s soul. Imagine if it was: You can tell a person’s character by her ankles!!!

When I was twenty-one, I went overseas for the first time. I worked as an au pair in London. My weekends were spent at the theatre. I saw Glenda Jackson in a three hour show. She was brilliant. And to my utter delight, she had large ankles! Glenda Jackson and Gaynor Young Unite!!!!!

Then I had my fall.
The Gaynor with the magical, flirtatious blue eyes had an abrupt change. I now have only 40% eyesight with no peripheral vision. Added to which I was also completely deaf. I didn’t look at the world in the same challenging manner of old. After my fall, I was confused and frightened by the world presented to me. It was different in all manner of ways. I couldn’t see a person’s whole face, I saw up to half their nose and that was it. This new world wasn’t a place I was familiar with. The fear I felt was revealed in my eyes.

My left eye, I now refer to as my squonk eye. Whenever I am tired or stressed this left eye droops and halves in size. That is why I need to get on my bed in the afternoon, take off my Cochlear Implants and close my eyes for an hour or two. I remember working with the director, Maralin Vanrenen, on my show My Plunge to Fame. We would get to a certain point in rehearsals and she would say: “Okay, your eye is telling me that it is enough work for you today.”
“No, M, I can carry on,” I protested.
“Gaynor, ‘to bed, to bed, perchance to dream…’ she finished with a quote from Midsummer Nights Dream. 

Over time, I have now got used to my eyesight. In actual fact, because my eyesight is so limited I now notice things more. I will say to my friend, B: “Look at the that shape of that tree, it’s just like an eagle. And with the blossoms just starting, it looks as if it has been caught in the snow.”
“I’ve often driven past that tree and I haven’t seen the eagle, but you’re totally right!”
That tree is always known as our Eagle Tree!
Colours, shapes, sights mean so much to me now. It is strange how when something is partially taken away from you, the sense you have left is heightened.

I am now middle aged. Glory, I remember my parents being middle aged and that was old as far as I was concerned. And now here is their ‘middle aged’ daughter wearing glasses! They are tortoiseshell with a blue inner lining and are actually quite funky! In June, my funky glasses and I went to spend a month in glorious (Brexit excluded!) England with B and John Royce. My friend Tammy Bonel Garner tool one look at me in my glasses and said with delight: “Gaye, you look just like Harry Potter’s older sister!”

About ten days into my stay, my left eye became swollen and quite painful. B being B, wasn’t having this and so we took a trip to Cromer Minor Injuries Unit. A nurse looked at my eye and told me I had two sty’s. I was given some antibiotic cream which I had to put on my inner lid. She said that I must begin by placing a warm cloth over my eyes for five minutes. Once I had done this then the cream must go on. B was not satisfied with merely this ritual and so got onto her glorious Google!
“It says you must rub your sty’s with a gold ring. That is guaranteed to help. Also, we must put warm tea bags on your eye.”
“Surely just doing what the nurse has advised is enough?”
“I think we must do all we can to get your eye right.”
And with that she slipped off her Grandmother’s beautiful gold ring and I sat there while Grandma was smeared all over my left eye.  I lay there with frikking warm teabags on my eye but unfortunately the sty’s continued to smile out at the world!

Five days later, we went up to Nottingham to visit B’s parents. My stied eye was up and flourishing. We were advised to visit the Eye Hospital. Here we were dealt with by a doctor who knew exactly what she was doing. She made me sit with my chin balanced in this small white receptacle. I stared ahead while she examined both my eyes, I tried to tell her that it was just my left eye I was having problems with. She quietened me and continued her examination. Eventually she informed me that I had an infection called Blepharitis in both eyes! Lots of eye bathing and drops followed. By the time, I flew home to South Africa, two healed eyes shone out at the world. 

Mums had been concerned about my eyes while I was away and so had booked me in at the eye clinic just to check that my eyes were Blepharitis free. They did a whole load of tests and said that indeed I was infection free but I needed two cataract operations.

Cataract. Obviously I had heard the word. Countless people had cataract operations. All of a sudden, I was one of them. I wanted to know all about these things called: Cataracts!
Immediately!!!

Cataracts are an eye condition caused when the lens of the eye develops cloudy patches. Over time these patches usually grow bigger, causing blurry, misty vision. This is indeed the case with me. My eyesight on this iPad has not been working well. I was amazed to discover that the first cataract extraction was performed in 1750 by the French ophthalmologist, Jacques Daviel. The major cause of cataracts is old age. This ‘middle aged’ cataracted individual gave a resigned laugh!

I discovered that Monet suffered from cataracts that grew progressively worse between 1912 and 1922. Surgery was suggested but Monet stubbornly refused. When reflecting on the experience of his vision deteriorating, Monet recalled:
“Colours no longer had the same intensity for me…reds had begun to look muddy…my painting was getting more and more darkened.”
A comparison between Monet’s works with and without cataracts reveals the “overriding yellowing cast and loss of subtle colour discriminations.”
He feared his abilities as an artist could be compromised by the cataract procedure. This was one stubborn man and let’s face it, an artist terrified of losing that which enabled him to paint – his sight.
The image on the top left was painted when Monet had a moderately progressed cataract in 1915. The image on the top right provides us with the perspective of how Monet would have seen the picture. Much against his will, Monet, finally gave in and succumbed to a cataract operation. The lower image shows us the great detail and contrast that Monet was capable of seeing, and subsequently creating, once the cataract was removed in 1926. Once more, he used the gentle blues and greens reminiscent of his earlier ponds and gardens. He could see again!

Sight is an extraordinary thing and so incredibly important.
I am also deaf. Before I got my life changing Cochlear Implants, the world I lived in was a grey cocoon. I felt as if I was being blocked out from Life. Research has been done on deaf and blind people from birth. They were asked which they would prefer to be. The overall consensus was that they would prefer to be blind. This was a shock to me. I would have thought that sight would be more important than being able to hear. Then I thought, how does one explain the word ‘transcend’ to a deaf person??? I was lucky in that I became deaf at the age of 28. Imagine being deaf from birth! Being able to hear enables one to make sense of the world surrounding you. 

Because of my 40% eyesight I am unable to drive. This has caused me tremendous frustration. Then something occurred which changed my whole way of seeing things.
A friend of mine was bringing me back from the shops when we saw it – the rainbow! It was a full arc of a rainbow that went from one end of the earth to the other.
“Lisa, pull over and stop the car! Please?”
She stopped at the side of the road and I just stared. I have seen many rainbows before and their colours of blue, purple, green have always delighted me. This rainbow outdid them all. The colours seemed to collide straight into your heart. I sat there and thought: ‘Gaynor, don’t you ever forget this. Store it up and remember!’

And store it up I have.
Whenever I am coming back from the shops, carrying my bags of shopping and cursing the fact that I am unable to drive, I stop. Put down my bags, take a deep breath and I remember.
I am still able to see my mother’s gorgeous smile, a child’s first steps as he learns to walk, Perdita, my dog, running joyfully to greet me, a sky full of stars, a field overflowing with Sunflowers. I am still able to see the wonderful sight of a sky shimmering with a rainbow.
I pick up my bags with a smile in my heart.
I can see rainbows.
I can see!

I am no painter but I hope what worked for Monet, will work for me. I am having my first cataract operation today, the 11th October and the next on the 25th.
My sight will be restored.

I don’t know what I’ll do about my ankles!!!!!

The post Monet & Me! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

There are so many things that you forget in life. Isn’t it strange how I remember not only reading my first book, but also the words within it. That was a momentous time in my life. The time when the world of books was revealed to me. How was I to know what a stimulating universe, Janet and John would lead me into?

When I had my fall off the stage at the State Theatre, I suffered brain damage. This affected my reading ability. I would look at a page of a book and I would just see this jumbled mass of words. I didn’t know how to make sense of this horrifying heap of meaningless phrases. Where did I begin? I had no knowledge of how to separate the words or what to do when I reached the end of a line. My eyes continued on and there was nothing there! Where did they go to next? My Occupational Therapist, Stella Sims, cut a two centimetre long rectangular hole out of a strip of cardboard. Then she held it over one word within the nightmarish mass. 

“Read this, Gaynor,” she instructed me.

I looked at the word that lay in it’s little cardboard bed and said: “The”

Stella moved the card to the next word and I read: “girl”

She moved it again and I said: “laughed.” I looked up and said: “Oh, the girl laughed. I read a sentence, Stella! I am managing, aren’t I? Let me do it?”

I took the card and continued until the end of the line. “But…there are no more words. What happens now?” I said despairingly.

“Put your finger there to mark your place, and then go back to the beginning of the line but move one down. You’ll see a whole other line. Put the card on the first word of that line and then continue to read.”

The following week, Stella cut the cardboard to fit two words and then three. And this was how I began to read again. My brain had to learn how to focus on individual words, in different sentences on separate lines. I had to re-teach my brain the process of reading.

Once my brain had mastered this ability, I devoured books. 

For eighteen years, I was completely deaf and found communicating with people difficult. Books were different. I used to sit in a lounge full of people and was unable to understand a word that was being said. So I bought out a book and would soon be lost in another world. Books were my life saver!  They spoke to me in a language I understood. With a laugh, I can say that often I still speak back.

“Oh, you make me so mad,” I muttered to a character as I put down my book and went through to the kitchen to grab some chocolate from the fridge. Then with a piece of Lindt chocolate in my mouth, “You wait, you will get your comeuppance!” was my retort to the character as I began reading once more. 

Having my Cochlear Implants and now being able to hear, changed my relationship with books. My love affair with them remains but they are no longer used as rescue equipment. Books give you an insight into the minds and workings of people. This is something I have always loved.

Recently I came across this most amazing project set up by Asijike Arts, a lottery funded initiative of the George Arts Theatre. It aims to inspire, educate and entertain children and young people in the George community. Their Book Tree scheme hopes to increase literacy levels in George by encouraging people to read more. I was delighted to learn from Lauretta, one of the Asijike interns, more about this wonderful concept. The idea is to plant a ‘forest’ of Book Trees throughout George. The first beautiful tree was set up in Inkcubeko Youth and Science Centre in Thembalethu. Seventy donated books were joyfully placed at the trees base. These books can be borrowed, read and swapped for other books. If anyone falls totally in love with a book that they are reluctant to return, they are allowed keep it.

“So, Book Trees aren’t only for children?” I asked.

“No, they are for all ages.” 

My bookshelves are positively groaning with the wonderful weight of books. There are those books that no longer hold an interest for me. I have a long drawer in which these books lie, hopelessly cluttered. I can almost hear them crying out to me: “Please don’t leave us shut in here. We want to be read!” 

There are two Book Tree drop off points: The George Arts Theatre and George Museum. I shall be taking my drawer with the muttering books inside, to the George Theatre on Monday. Mums has so many children’s books which she kept for her grandchildren. They loved them but have now outgrown them. Wouldn’t they make a wonderful donation to a Book Tree! I must persuade Mums and her children’s books to accompany me and my muttering drawer to the theatre! 

Whilst illuminating me about the Book Tree project, Lauretta explained that they were also producing a play to promote the initiative.

“You have a production called The Book Tree?” I asked in astonishment.

“Yes,” she said, laughing at my amazement. “Asijike Arts have also devised a wonderful play. It opens on the 13th November. It’s free for the schools attending. And then on 17th, its open to everyone.  Please won’t you spread the word?”

Asijike believes in bringing theatre to the children and children to the theatre. They put on their first production The Dreambox which drew almost 3000 children. I remember performing for children. It is one of the most rewarding forms of entertainment for an actor. The children lose themselves in what is happening and shout out advice, sing along and freely comment on the action. 90% of the children that saw The Dreambox had never been to a theatre before. What an experience for the children and the actors!

It saddens me that Asijike’s lottery funding is drawing to an end. Unless a sponsor is found it will cease to exisit. They are doing vital work in our community. How I wish I was a billionaire. Asijike would not want for a thing!

Not only will I spread the word about The Book Tree production but I will be sitting in the audience waiting to be charmed by the magic of theatre for children. Books and theatre. Two of the greatest loves of my life!

Roll on mid-November!

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The post The Book Tree! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

“The sea is emotion incarnate. It loves, hates and weeps.

 Five years after my fall, I went on holiday to the Virgin Islands.

The sea stretched as far as the eye could see. It was spellbinding in it’s beauty. It’s colour varied from a deep purply blue to cool turquoise. Why wasn’t our South African sea these vibrant colours, I wondered. We moored our boat alongside a coral reef. I had been lent flippers, mask and snorkel. I had never snorkelled before and was both excited and a little nervous. My friends gave me a thumbs up, turned to the water and flooop, they were gone! 

Flooopassshhhhh!!!! I splashed into the water with a little more vigour than the others. When the bubbles from my entrance had cleared, a world that was wonderfully new opened her arms and embraced me. I have no words to aptly describe the life that was revealed. In the Virgin Islands, the seawater is transparently clear. The sea life is both luscious and delicate. Part of me wished for a camera to capture the enchantment of the environment that dipped and danced before me. The exotic fish that swirled around, beneath and above me were mesmerising. What was so exhilarating was that underwater, everyone, like me, was deaf!  I thought that there was no way to capture this experience. It was too vast and other worldly. I must simply be in the moment and remember.

In Peter Veysie’s sermon last Sunday, he conjured up this twenty-three year old memory of the Virgin Islands, when he spoke of his time snorkelling in Israel. He spoke of a world of devastating beauty that you only become aware of when you don a pair of goggles and snorkel and venture into the ocean. Wham! The underwater beauty hits you full on. He said that often people are like this. When we encounter people, we often tend to only see what they present to us. Look closer, search deeper, dive into them and their beauty will hit you like a dynamic force! 

This beauty within is a mind blowing thing to behold. And you don’t even need a snorkel and goggles!

B and I have a friend, Moira. We actually met Moira in church. Both B and I are deaf so we always sit in the second row. The first two seats in the second row are taken by a lovely lady, Dot and then there’s Moira who sits next to me. We love seeing what Moira is wearing. She is an eighty year old who arrives in these wonderful trouser suits. Whatever the colour – orange, purple, green or pink, everything matches. She is a sheer delight! 

Last week, through WhatsApp, I discovered that she had cancer and was in hospital. I received a message from B who had also just got the WhatsApp news:

“I’m coming past your place. I’ll pick you up and we’ll go see Moira together.”

Moira’s face broke into an enormous smile when she saw us. I gave her a tight hug.

“I am so sorry, Moira,”I said, “what a complete bummer! Whereabouts is the cancer?”

“It’s everywhere. They’ve done tests and will tell me properly later. But enough of me, tell me, did you have a wonderful time overseas?”

B and I spoke a bit about my trip to visit her and John. Then Moira said: 

“I have also just been overseas to England. Do you know,” she said with sparkling eyes, “this was the first time I have ever left Africa.”

“Moira!” B gasped.

“And I had the most splendid time. My family took me to London, Scotland and the Lake District. Oh, what a marvellous holiday we had.”

We spoke to Moira as we had never done before. I saw this gutsy lady with a sense of humour who, in spite of everything, has retained a deep love of life. When we finally left the hospital, the smell of the ocean hung over B and me. Mentally I flung our snorkels and flippers into the back of the car. 

I am fortunate to know Nisha Varghese. She has cerebral palsy and spends her life in a wheelchair. Physically she battles. But, deep within her depths beats the most incredible compassionate heart. She could be bitter, miserable and depressed. Instead she spends her time striving to improve the lives of others by raising money for various charities. Whenever I read one of her Facebook posts, I can hear the sea waves echoing as they crash onshore. I can also see the wonder and enchantment below the sea. A glorious place that quite definitely belongs to Nisha. 

Last week, I watched Princess Eugenie get married. The bride got out of the car in this exquisite bridal gown. Prince Andrew, her father, took her arm as she mounted the steps of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. The dress had a low cut back and you could clearly see this long scar running down her spine. It was from an operation she had when she was much younger as a result of Scoliosis. I loved the fact that she hadn’t chosen to hide it. What she was saying was: ‘Yes, I have a scar but that is part of what makes me who I am. And I feel beautiful today!’

I am reminded of Edith Egers’ words in her magnificent book The Choice:’Maybe to heal isn’t to erase the scar or even to make the scar. To heal, is to cherish the wound.’

Princess Eugenie was certainly cherishing her wound. Since the wedding, people around the world have been empowered not to be ashamed of their scars. After all, they are only skin deep!

As Princess Eugenie said: “I think you can change the way beauty is.”

A shoal of fish darted in amongst the pink coral. Their gold and black stripes seemed to laugh at the starfish as they spun on their way. The sea anemones looked on nodding approvingly.

I have not been as brave as Princess Eugenie. 

As a result of my fall, my body changed. Because of my spasticity, I walk with a limp and have an unruly arm that does its own thing. I also have a squonk eye and wear two cochlear implants to deal with my deafness. Aware of these imperfections, I am constantly striving to hide them. 

Last week, a pharmacist turned to serve me and gave a gasp. 

“Cochlear Implants!” she exclaimed, pointing at my head.

My hand shot up to my Cochlear Implant that is normally hidden by my hair. Blast, it was showing.

“How wonderful! Would you mind just waiting a moment?” she asked. “Lene, Lene, come here quickly?”

A young woman appeared from behind the shelves.

“This is my daughter, Lene,” she said, “and I want to show her your Cochlear Implants. We have been told that Lene needs them. She has been unbelievably apprehensive. But look,” she said to her daughter, “look how neat they are. There’s nothing frightening or ugly about them at all.”

Lene came closer and gave my Cochlear Implant devices a thorough inspection.        

“I was totally deaf for 18 years,” I said, “These Cochlear Implants re-opened the world to me. What is incredible is what is hidden between my skull and my skin. Twenty-two electrodes!  These pick up the vibrations travelling through my Cochlear and transmit messages to my brain. The whole thing is an almost uncanny, magical miracle. I am now able to hear things that were lost to me for years. Lene, don’t be apprehensive. Greet your Cochlear Implants with joy.”

As I left the chemist I saw reams of fish, scatter through the waves in front of my minds eye. And I laughed. I must remember that it is what is underneath the water that is important. Underneath Lene’s water and underneath mine.

I hope that people, on meeting me, are diverted from all of my imperfections. I would like them to put on metaphorical snorkels and goggles and plunge beneath the surface. Together we can investigate the beauty that exists in the hidden depths of life’s great ocean. 

We can explore each other. Finding the beauty beneath the surface.

This kind of beauty is ravishing!

The post The Beauty Beneath!!! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

Code: a system of words, letters, figures, or symbols used to represent others, especially for the purposes of secrecy.

It is strange how codes have played a part throughout my life.

I think back to my childhood gang and I smile in remembrance.
T rest ugs!!! Bggt js yehrmdio!!!
(Translation: I have a news!!! Meet me urgently!!!)
I sent this secretly coded message to the rest of my eight year old gang. We would meet at our fort at four o’clock, once homework was finished. There were six of us in our gang. Simon, our gang leader, had devised the code. It was masterful and we used it all the time. This was our code. Only we knew how it worked. That knowledge made me want to hug myself in glee!

I had my fall and the world as I knew it, had to be put into a different order. I often felt that I had become a ‘code’! Strangers looked at me and saw one thing. I knew that this representation was totally misleading and false. In order to break the code, you had to really search beneath the brain damage, deafness and spasticity. Underneath all the outside paraphernalia beat the true Gaynor. The real Gaynor was waiting impatiently for people to break her code!

My Aunt has always been a scrabble fanatic. Before my fall, I used to love sitting and playing scrabble with her. Placing down words like zoology for a ‘triple word score’ put a grin on my face! My accident did away with that type of grinning. Words now ‘scrabbled’ around my brain, refusing to be decoded. My book My Plunge to Fame took an inordinate amount of time to write. I would know which word I wanted to use but it would refuse to venture out onto my keyboard. I would go for my afternoon rest, and in the evening that word would spill out of my brain and onto the keyboard with ease and joy.

After my fall, I was ashamed of my deafness. I was desperate to appear ‘normal’. Perish the thought, that I ever admitted to anyone that I couldn’t hear them. ‘Really!’ became my stock phrase.
“So, Gaynor, tell me have you ever read Pat Conroy’s book Prince of Tides?”
I smiled warmly: “Really?”
I mean, really???
One day I read an advertisement for a sign language class. I imagined the joy of being able to communicate without any ‘really’s. The elation of understanding once more! Before I could change my mind, I signed up to join the class. The sign language class was being taught by a deaf woman but the group would include both deaf and non-deaf students. I would fit in perfectly I thought to myself. I would learn a different coded language!

My problem in class lay in my spasticity and my eye sight. I couldn’t see both hands of the ‘speaker’ at once. Never mind having to sign with one hand that refused to cooperate and insisted on doing it’s own thing! And yet, those six months were a break through for me. Our teacher, Alison, was zany, intelligent and…completely deaf. And I really liked her. That class accomplished far more than merely attempting to teach me sign language. My fear of being deaf was done away with. I realised that deaf people were the same as everyone else. They just couldn’t hear. My shame at being deaf evaporated like an early morning mist. This particular code within myself had been broken.

I used to get a little annoyed with my parents in the early years of my recuperation. They devised a new code to speak between themselves. I was totally reliant on lip reading to understand what was going on. So, when they wished to discuss something privately and I was in the room, they would talk through their teeth without moving their lips. I was stymied. I knew they were talking about something, probably me, but this lip reading creature had no idea what they were saying. It wasn’t until I had my brilliant Cochlear Implants that I was able to crack their code!

As part of my brains healing process, my occupational therapist used to try and persuade me to do puzzles, particularly crossword puzzles. How I hated them! Recently however I found my two best friends poring over a newspaper.
“I think it’s pounced,” muttered B.
“ I’m just worried about cauliflower,” replied Jans.
“Mmmmmmmm,” they murmured in unison.
‘Oh, glory, they’re working on a crossword puzzle,’ I thought. I am totally useless at crossword puzzles. The three of us do things together. I would never cope with crossword puzzles!
“What are you up to?”
“We’re doing a Codeword puzzle,” B answered. “No, stop scowling! I’ll show you how it works.”
She pointed out a crossword puzzle type frame. In it three letters of the alphabet were strewn at odd places around the puzzle. These are the ‘clues’ to the rest of the puzzle!
“Down here you have the alphabet with the three letters crossed out. Now you have to fill in the rest to make up words.”
Hesitantly I made a suggestion.
“Yeah, Gaye, I think that could work,” said B with a smile. I joined in solving the puzzle and found to my delight that I could do it. To my relief, I discovered that over the years my brain had improved.
I am now able to do Codewords. It takes me a long time and, unlike B and Jans, I do the easy ones. But their feelings on completion, are nothing compared to mine. The satisfaction when I complete a puzzle is insurmountable. I look at all the painstakingly filled in words with utter delight and joy!

I now have a Codeword App on my iPad. I try and get this brain of mine to battle with a puzzle daily. It is good for my damaged brain. It is good for every brain! Medical gurus now tell us that puzzles stave off brain ‘old age’! I wish to have a vitally working brain in my eighty year old body!

With a smile, I think back to my childhood code, the sign language code, my parents code and I now look at the Codeword puzzle that tries to baffle me. It won’t though. I won’t let it.
I have always had a desire to crack life’s codes. There are those that I solve and those that I learn from.

That is the wonder of this code of life!

The post Dot, Dot, Dot – Dash, Dash, Dash! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

I watched the dancers moving to a music I could no longer hear.
Their bodies swayed and moved to a hidden beat. There was laughter, hand clapping, stamping and twirling. I wished that I still possessed a little of the grace I used to have. I would have enjoyed to have been a part of that wonderful riotous melee. Suddenly Mums came across to me and mouthed: “They are playing one of your favourite songs!”
“Which one?”
“Thank You for the Music,” was the response.
“Oh, Mums, I love that song. Where are they up to?”
I watched my mother’s mouth closely.
“…I’m so grateful and proud, all I want is to sing it out loud. So I say, thank you for the…
“…music, the songs I’m singing, thanks for all the joy they’re bringing…” I sang along joyfully to a music that played clearly in my heart. Outside was silence.
My darling Dad gently put his arms around me and we swayed together. Mums continued singing:”Who could live without it, I ask in all honesty, what would life be, without a song or a dance, what are we…”
“So I say, thank you for the music, for giving it to me…” I sang tunelessly to a long remembered song. There was a joyous smile on my face as I sang for what had once been.

I met Jenny Perold, my audiologist, and into that silent world, the word ‘Cochlear Implant’ began to reverberate. Life began to stir in what had been dead for the past eighteen years. Cochlear Implants pushed open the door to my world and said: COME IN AND DANCE!!!

This year is the tenth anniversary of my first Cochlear Implant.
I entered the world of sound and was initially totally deafened! Cars whizzed past with a high pitched roar. People shouted to each other in the supermarket. Dad’s spoon made a thunderous clunk as he stirred his coffee. The child slurped his milkshake down in an ear splitting way. I dropped a knife on the floor and the echo reverberated in a massive clang around my kitchen. Spencer, my cockatiel, chattered softly to himself in trumpet shattering tones.

I had to learn to re-hear my world. Hearing a strange sound, I would have to recognise what was causing it. Then my brain would compartmentalise it. The next time that sound occurred, my brain would rifle through the compartments, find the sound and slot it neatly into it’s allocated place. The cars stopped whizzing in high pitched roars. They drove past with their normal purr. Dad’s spoon no longer clunked. It merely stirred his coffee. A child drinking his milkshake is now a delightful sight to me. Alas, Spencer’s chatter can still verge on the trumpet shattering scale. Fortunately I love trumpets and I am mad about my bird!

I had my second Cochlear Implant in my ear that wasn’t hearing a thing. We weren’t sure whether there were any nerves working in my left ear. That was the side on which I landed when I fell. But lo and behold, I have been granted sound on that side too. So now I am a person that hears with both her ears. I am bilateral!!!

While I have been writing this it has been storming outside. Perdita, my dachshund, has been cowering under the bed in sheer terror. I, on the other hand, have just been glorying in the fact that I am not only able to smell the rain but to hear it hammering down from above. How lucky I am!

Over the past ten years, so much has been given back to me. Being able to understand what people are saying, music, films, theatre, being able to interact with our pastor in church. Thank goodness he is patient with a sense of humour. Regularly I will interrupt with: “No, Peter, surely God didn’t mean for that to happen?”
“Yes, he did. Just wait, you’ll see why in a moment!”

Every three years, my medical aid, Discovery, provides me with an upgrade to my Cochlear Implant processor. Recently I was excited because that time had blissfully arrived once more. Jenny had told me it would be smaller and stronger than my previous one. As she handed it to me, the processor almost seemed to grin and say: Hey there, we’re going to have fun together!
I looked at it in amazement. It was astonishing that such a minute item could contain such life giving properties.
“You have an iPhone, don’t you?” Jenny asked.
“Yes, in actual fact, it’s new.”
“You can actually operate your processor by remote control using your iPhone. You simply put an App on your phone.”
“Amazing!” I laughed.
Jenny looked at her computer and said:
“You haven’t been listening to your music much.”
“What do you mean.”
She pointed to a small circle on her screen. About an eighth of the circle was a blue colour. “That’s your music. There’s also a portion showing your conversation, how much TV you watch…”
“What is that portion, the largest one?”
Jen smiled. “That’s your quiet time.”
Whilst marvelling at the technical genius in front of me, a small part of me cried out: ‘What about my privacy?’
As if reading my mind, Jenny said: “Don’t worry, that is as far as one is able to ‘probe’. It’s just to give us an assessment of how you are using your Cochlear Implant.”
I was secretly disappointed at myself for not making the most of my incredible ‘ears’ and vowed to listen to more music. Earlier today, I was listening to Barbara Streisand. What an artist she is! Before my fall,I used to love the music of Out of Africa. It’s strange how foreign that music sounds to me now. I’m going to persevere with it though. Vibrations through my Cochlear can set off different sounds and images in my brain. I need to search for the music I loved so much. It’s there. I will find it.

I think back to that person watching the dancing, lost in the silence of her world. How my life has changed. I now have a Cochlear Implant in each ear. I have a special streamer that helps me watch TV. I am able to hold my own at a table filled with people. I am mad about a singer I had never heard before my fall, Eva Cassidy. I am so looking forward to the next Meryl Streep film hitting the big screen.

In August I was in England and I went to the Novello Theatre in London to see the London production of Mama Mia. Beforehand we stopped in at The Waldorf. What a zoot-magoot hotel!!! We sat and drank cocktails deluxe. They were spectacular in their intricate designs and tasted out of this world. The doorman was a Mr Bean lookalike! I insisted on a photograph being taken of the two of us. I delighted in the way he permitted a small smile to split his de riguer facade!

It was such a treat watching Mama Mia. I listened to them singing Thank you for the music and I simply rejoiced. My life seemed to have done a wonderful circle. Once more I’m able to listen to that song with an unbounded joy in my heart.

I want to stand on a mountain top and ululate long and loud with a mixture of jubilation and exultation. I am alive and part of this wonderful thing called Life.

Thank you for the music!!!

The post Thank you for the music! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

I was watching Carte Blanche recently and was reminded of Chris Barnard performing the first heart transplant in 1967. Nowadays heart transplants are common place. People are given knee, hip, ankle and shoulder replacements. Bionic eyes are now enabling the blind to see! For eighteen years, due to my fall, I lived in the grey, soundless world of the deaf. Then nine years ago, I had my first Cochlear Implant. The world of sound joyfully entered my life once more. Two years ago, a Cochlear Implant was performed on my left ear that had no hearing whatsoever. Magically I am now hearing in stereo!

It was devastating to suddenly be cast into the deaf world, but imagine not only being born deaf but being born without ears!!!

Finn was born without ears. His condition is known as Microtia, this is when the outer ear hasn’t formed properly. He also had the added problem of Atresia a condition whereby your ear canals have not actually developed. In many Microtia cases, the doctor cannot tell what caused it. Lisa, Finn’s mother, had a text book pregnancy and she was never on any kind of medication. After the birth, she saw a geneticist who tested both herself and her husband, Dave. No genetic reason was discovered as to why Finn’s condition might have occurred. It was concluded that it was caused by some kind of environmental factor. A lack of oxygen to the womb around the seven week mark when ears are formed is a strong possibility.

“When we realised that our new, baby boy basically had no ears, we were shocked and scared. We had never heard of this condition. We would do whatever we could to help him and make his life easier. Our love for him was enormous, as with any first time parent, and nothing would stop us doing the best for him.”

At three months, Finn was fitted with a conductive hearing device, a BAHA. This was a soft band worn around the skull that improved his hearing dramatically. It sat on his mastoid bone and sound was conducted through this, straight to the inner ear. The closed-up ear canal and middle ear system were bypassed.

The Prosser’s then began seeking out other options for their boy. Finn needed ears and South Africa didn’t seem to offer the best solutions. Doctors would only perform a rib graft ear reconstruction procedure when he was 9 or 10 using his own rib cartilage to build the frame of the ears. It would involve 3 or 4 operations per ear and take around three years to complete. In South Africa, they also wouldn’t open up the ear canal. They would only attach a hearing aid such as a BAHA to the mastoid bone. In America, however, they found their prayers were answered.

Dr. John Reinisch wanted to cosmetically improve the surgery used on Microtia patients. He invented a technique, known as MEDPOR® ear reconstruction. For Finn, two larger than normal ears would be moulded out of polyethylene which he would grow into as he got older. This would eliminate the need for future surgery. Finn’s own skin and blood vessels would be grafted over these structures. This safe, effective technique had been used on patients between the ages of 3 to 60. Finn was 4.

BINGO!!!

The Prosser family flew to California and Finn’s first ‘new ear’ operation was performed in April. Dr Reinisch worked closely with an ENT surgeon, Dr Roberson. When the doctor removed the turban of bandages wrapped around Finn’s new ear, the adults were talking excitedly to one another, commenting on his new appearance. Finn’s practical, down to earth comment stopped them all:
“Wow, I can really hear so well. I don’t need my BAHA anymore!!!”

One of the biggest advantages of the whole procedure is that it can be performed on people at such a young age.  With his ‘new ears’ Finn is now able to start school hearing. Capable of learning  just like his compatriots!

Children can be really cruel. When I was seven, I sat next to a girl that had a mass of freckles all over her face. Two boys in our class used to reduce her to tears. They would chant that Sandra had a face that looked as if flies had pooped on it! Imagine how children would have reacted to a boy with no ears. Mockery, jeers and taunts would have followed that gorgeous, blonde mopped child everywhere. I dread to think of what that would have done to Finn.

I applaud doctors who keep pushing the boundaries of medical science. If it wasn’t for Dr. Graeme Clark’s tenacity the Cochlear Implant might never have been invented. I wouldn’t now be able to hear! If it wasn’t for Dr. Rhemish, Finn would not have his ‘new ears’. I am knocked sideways by his expertise. He was able to construct a new set of ears in an almost God-like manner!

My admiration for Lisa and Dave Prosser is vast. Their son needed two incredibly expensive operations that could only done in America. One and a half million rand per ear! Family and friends have embarked on a variety of fund raising schemes to help, but this is a huge amount of money to raise. I heard of Finn and his ‘new ears’ through Val, my golf professional. She organised a golf day to raise money for Finn. Unfortunately I was not good enough to participate! But, I am a writer so I thought that I could write and let the world  know about the miracle of Finn’s ears.

I guess each time Lisa and Dave look at Finn with his two incredible hearing ears, their eyes must do a double take.

And their hearts must lift.

*

If you would like to help towards the cost of Finn’s ‘new ears’ 

click here!

or EFT 

LP Prosser

Standard Bank – Sandton City

Account no: 407617655

Branch Code: 018105

The post Ears for Finn! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

Dear Gaynor

I am a friend of the director, Janice Honeyman and Denise Goldin.
I am a professional actress, born in Cape Town but now living in California.

The way I came to know of you is this:
I was in Cape Town staying with Janice. I am working on a play about a tragedy that has also brought me to know Denise. I was talking to Janice about the trials of having been an understudy – specifically for Angels in America, Parts I and 2. I told her that I had not been rehearsed on the stage and had to go on for two three hour length parts of that play. In one instance, I was a few seconds late in coming down a revolving platform and got stuck. Who knows what would have happened, if not for an alert stage hand who reached in to pull me out?

Janice got quite upset and told me about what had happened to you, about your horrendous fall offstage. A few days later, at the Naledi Theatre Award ceremony in Johannesburg, I was blown away when you came on the stage. I realised you were the actress Janice had told me about. I immediately bought your book on Kindle and read it all the way from Johannesburg to London, to San Francisco.

I am so profoundly impacted, so deeply touched by your story but also by your light and power which I was fortunate to actually experience from the stage that night. I asked Denise for your email.

I would very much like to be in touch with you. Because of my own tragedy – an avoidable accident that killed my gorgeous 21 year old daughter, Annais in July 2013. I was introduced to Denise Goldin online. I met her at the Theatre awards for the first time. Stayed with her. Did the first reading of my play at her house and then boarded the plane back to California…and of course devoured your book.

I have many things I would like to ask you about. There are many similarities although both cases are different in their specifics. But still, there are elements that screamed out at me.

So, if you would be open, I would love to be in touch.

Very warm regards
Penny Kreitzer

I immediately read about Annais on: www.JusticeforAnnais.com and was horrified.
Several dozen members of staff were happily eating breakfast under a large oak tree in Camp Taiwonga, California in 2013. Disaster struck. A thirty foot branch cracked and hurtled downwards, killing Annais and severely injuring several others.

It would appear that six months previously, Camp Taiwonga had been warned about the instability of that oak tree. Nothing was done! The oak tree with it’s overloaded precarious boughs remained untouched. Why had that tree not been looked after and pruned? For goodness sakes, it was a disaster waiting to happen. The entire catastrophe could have been avoided.

Instead a dark haired young woman with dancing eyes is now dead.

Three years later, Penny has written a play about her daughter. That disaster and the resulting anger gave birth to Penny’s writing talents.
“I do know that without that anger, I would never have begun to write the play. It was anger that drove me to the computer and that rage punched word after word onto my keyboard. And yet, suddenly in the midst of that raw anguish, beautiful tender pieces of poetry began to emerge. I have no idea where some of the characters in my play appeared from. They are funny, poignant, honest and compelling. And gradually the story took over. I found I was able to handle it with a gentler spirit. I believe the discovery, tears, anger, shock, awareness and love will affect the audience in different ways. I am hoping that the story will speak for itself.”

Anger is a painful, powerful and complex emotion. Not dealing with it effectively, increases its potential to be destructive. After my fall, how I longed to lash out with my fists or my tongue and deliver ‘felling’ blows. The problem was: my fists and tongue would no longer ‘work’ as they used to!!! I was given a computer and the light began to dawn. My darkness eased as, like Penny, I discovered how through writing I could expel my anger.

With the computer in front of me, I was able to ‘write’. My creativity was given free reign. My anger was the gelignite. Explosively, I wrote about the ‘me’ I had been forced to become due to my fall. The frustration of my deafness, my memory loss, my fury about my spasticity and no longer being able to use my right hand for writing. It all exploded forth onto the computer screen. Those pieces were fuelled by my rage at the way my life had changed so drastically. I had lost control of so many areas of my life. Yet I was lord of that keyboard. That was where I could shout and weep and ‘vent my spleen!’.

Like Penny, I had to turn the pain of my anger and loss into energy for change. It was from those early ‘gnashing of teeth’ that I eventually calmed myself and finally my book My Plunge to Fame was born.

Anger is a useless emotion. The only person it affects is YOU. One has to rise above the anger; to get beyond it. I did this while writing my book. It was a cathartic experience and hopefully the reader can learn something about our wonderful, tragic, amusing, devastating, beautiful and horrific human existence.

Anger has been the fuse for so many works of art – paintings, music, plays, books and poems. Through his monstrous anger at the futility of World War 1, Wilfred Owen created so much powerful poetry. There is a kind of macabre beauty to his poems that contain such a dreadful waste and horror.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.-
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen

If you are unfortunate enough to endure some horrifying trauma, I hope that the resulting anger is constructively channelled and transformed into something beautiful. Penny discovered that in the midst of the destruction and horror that surrounded her, there was a chink of light.
Creativity beckoned.
And where there is creativity, there is always hope.

The post Scream! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

I was staying with my sister, Liz. Every afternoon I go for my afternoon nap. I was feeling pretty gruck that afternoon with flu and was stuffed full of paracetamol. Strangely enough I couldn’t sleep, so I was lying in bed reading. Isabel Allende’s book, Paula, had me totally captivated with it’s heart wrenching prose and story. Suddenly the door burst open. My hearing aid was out but it wasn’t difficult to lip read what my sister was saying: “Fire, Gaynor, fire!”
“Where?” I cried sitting up, instantly ready to go and saturate the fire that was obviously raging in the kitchen.
“Your pillowcase is touching the bedside light and burning! I smelled it from the kitchen.”
Sure enough, the pillowcase, previously a lovely sky blue in colour, was now quietly smouldering to a magnificent scorched brown. I hadn’t seen it because it was on my right and my 40% eyesight misses out on so much. And I hadn’t smelled a thing because of my flu!

Blip!

“Gaynor, I love the dress you’re wearing. You look great!”
I performed a rather strange dance. I did a remarkably ungraceful and un-ballerina type pirouette whilst shouting at the top of my voice: “Thank you! Where are you? I can hear you perfectly but WHERE ARE YOU?”
With my Cochlear Implants on, my hearing is now fabulous. However they don’t give me a sense of direction. A person can shout at me from their flat three stories up and I will now hear them clearly but I have got no idea where they are. To my left, to my right, under a bush, hanging from an oak tree!!! Having only 40% eyesight, I am well aware that my vision is limited. Hence the pirouette as I scan the horizon searching for that clear voice telling me how good I look!

Blip!

I have short term memory loss due to frontal lobe brain damage. As a result, I battle remembering names. Recently I was speaking to my sister on the phone and I was telling her of a wonderful lunch I had been to.
“It was at that lovely restaurant…oh, what is it called?….It begins with a B. You know, Liz, it’s in that road that begins with a C. ”
Liz was flummoxed and didn’t have the faintest clue. My mother filled her in. It was the Bayleaf restaurant situated in Cathedral street!

Blip!

The woman greeted me with a warm smile. I returned her greeting thinking to myself: Glory be, I have clean forgotten your name! I see you three times a week in gym and for the life of me, I can’t remember your name. It begins with an S, doesn’t it? Sue, Sharon, Simone, Stacey…..Oh, flip!
“I am so, so sorry, but I have forgotten your name. It’s my brain damage,” I explained. “I know it begins with an S.”
She laughed. “The next one down. It begins with a T – Trish.” I looked at her blankly. “The next one down,” she explained, “R,S and…T!”
Glory be, I was even getting the first letter wrong too!

Blip!

In gym there is this man that has the most incredibly coloured sport shoes. They are turquoise, red, purple, and green with dynamic yellow laces. His name is Gary but he is quite used to me forgetting it. He met Mum today and was amazed to discover that she was my mother. He said to Mum: “She often forgets my name so tell Gaynor that the guy with the fancy footwear says he’ll see her at gym on Monday!”
“Oh,” I said with delight when Mum told me, “that’s…that’s…Graham…no, that’s…that’s…
GARY!” I exclaimed with delight!
That was almost a Blip! but thank the Pope it wasn’t. I will see the guy with the fancy footwear at gym on Monday!

I have gone from being an Honours student, Cum Lauder, to this person battling to remember names. Prior to my fall, my thought processes would happily weave themselves along the intricate pathways of the brain. This was revealed in the way I laughed, moved, spoke, related to people. This movement through my brain enabled me to show who I was to the world. After my fall, I would happily weave my way along the normal pathways of my brain, only to find them barred with huge signs saying: NO ENTRY!
Shytenhauzen, I had to discover new pathways in my brain to enable me to do things that used to come so easily to me.

How did this make me feel?

Initially, I was ashamed and furious. I cried bitterly at this new “stupidity” that had bowled me over. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light, ” Dylan Thomas said to his father. I was angry and I raged against the death of my light. But rage and cry as I did, it made no difference. You can either hide yourself away from the world or you can try and make sense of it in this body governed by this new, strangely working brain.

I have learned that there are things in this life that one has to learn to accept. I had to accept and learn to like this new Gaynor. I thank God for my sense of humour. Laughter is the most releasing thing and it is far more freeing than tears. I am now able to look at all my Blips! with a wry chuckle. Some of them even cause me to laugh out loud!

In this life of ours, acceptance plays a large part. It is something that challenges me constantly. My friends go for lovely, long bike rides. They go for a two hour hikes in the gorgeous forests of George. I know what it is like to ride a bike. I have felt the wind in my face as I swoop down a hilly gorge. I have been so fast that tears have run from my eyes. I know what it’s like to go for an invigorating walk over veld, down rocky slopes, to push your way through trees and bushes. I am no stranger to cycling or to hiking.
Now I am not able to enter these ‘hallowed’ grounds. Just recently, those DO NOT ENTER signs have caused me to retreat with a whimper.

Sigh – acceptance!

Blip!

So, my life is made up of Blips! It is also made up of joy, frustration, excitement, boredom, peace and contentment. Robert Frost seems to sum up my life in his poem: The Road Not Taken. When I had my fall, I could have lain in that bed and declined to enter this wonderful Blip! infested life. Instead I have entered life, Blips! and all, and oh, what a delicious, ride it is proving to be.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

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