That night when the kids were asleep and I went for a well deserved shower, I found that my thigh where Kevin Bacon had bitten me, was pimpel en pers (black and blue), and I vowed that the bally pig could do what ever it wanted to, and I would even open the gate into the road for him, but try and lure him back if he got out again was a no-no!
Luckily Jan was coming back the next day, and I thought it not one day too soon, or I will be tottering around like a hundred year old from pure exhaustion! My body did take a knock with carrying all that heavy stuff to try and secure the fence around Kevin's pen, and on top of that I was a nervous wreck. With all the stress and heart ache of the previous month, I was surprised that I was still on both my legs, as sometimes things would get a bitty too much, and the tears would flow, and this woman would feel very sorry for herself.
I was nicely trapped, as I knew that I would definitely not be able to go back to Scotland, and with Jan having to go to Johannesburg a lot for his work, I was in the middle, and would just have to help. Not that I minded, but as I was not feeling all that strong at the moment, it did make for a bit of a black outlook!
But first I had to go to Capetown to the heart devision of the Tygerberg hospital. I was scared, as the most horrible stories about our state hospitals were told, and I knew that it was not the best place to go, but I was told that the Western Cape's hospitals were well run.
I had the funniest experience, well in retrospect of course, as it was definitely not funny at the moment, when I had to go on the treadmill. The thing started off slowly, and was put faster and faster, and I was becoming more and more like a limp doll, clinging to the side bars to stay upright, while waves of black mistyness came and went, making me a bitty apprehensive for my life, but I tried valiantly to stay upright and conscious!

The woman in charge of the machine told me in stern tones to leave the bars alone, as that was only for balance, so I tried, but immediately felt myself going down in a black nothingness, so I grabbed the rails again, and faintly heard the woman say: 'Please mrs du Preez, stop hanging onto the bars, I can't get the right reading', but I just slid deeper and deeper into the blackness. At that stage I think she might have realized that something was terribly wrong, and stopped the machine to take my blood pressure.
I faintly heard her say: Oh my God', then she dragged me to the bed, and yelled for a doctor, but at this stage I couldn't care,  feeling very bad indeed, but started to feel a bit better after a few minutes. Apparently my blood pressure, instead of going up with the running, had dropped completely!
I was medicated, what with I didn't know, and sent back to the ward!
They found that my heart was okay, but very irregular, that my arteries were not too bad, but said that I had to go on medication to make my heart beat slower, and also on wafarin, as I was at high risk for a stroke!
So I went home where Jan was struggling terribly, as the temperature was about nil every morning, and he had to take the baby with when he took Andreas to the busstop.