The Sphere Effect

A traveller's perspective on life, the world
and what we can do about it!

No more doctors!

Filed under: Random Thoughts, Health — Heidi at 9:09 pm on Monday, October 15, 2007

Hi everyone

Just thought I’d let you know that I went to see my kidney specialist again this morning for the very last time. He tells me that he doesn’t need to see me again, that all of my blood stats are 100% in normal limits, and that he does not foresee a recurrence in the future. He says that I have the same risk of an episode of HUS that I had before I got sick. This is a very good thing :)

I discovered that I still have a multi-trip travel insurance policy, taken out in March this year, which doesn’t expire until March next year, so I need to take advantage of it. (No issues with pre-existing condition, as I already had the policy before I got sick). I am thinking very seriously about a short trip away over New Year - I will probably go and join up with Kel in the UK and go ski-ing in France. So for all my pommy mates - please don’t go away over Christmas and New Year….

Update

Filed under: Random Thoughts, Health — Heidi at 11:45 pm on Sunday, September 9, 2007

It’s been a long time since I updated anyone as to what’s happening with me.

I’ve been out of hospital now for just over two months, and progress has been excellent. I was certified fit to work by my GP a couple of weeks ago, and I have started working on a contract basis with WorleyParsons Engineering. I am working on the new Pluto Project, which is a new LNG Gas plant that is being constructed in North-West Australia. I am still based in Perth however, so I don’t get to have much fun playing somewhere else in Australia (dammit!)

With regard to my plans in the future, I have resolved not to make any plans until next January, as everyone seems to think it best that I recuperate for at least six months before making plans. I bow down to the combined greater wisdom of my family, friends and medical practitioners, although I find being planless incredibly frustrating.

It does look as though I will have some issues getting travel insurance at any time in the near future, so it seems that my hopes for getting back overseas have been well and truly dashed. At least in the short-term – I am hoping that as I stay well, I will have more chance of convincing some travel insurance agency that I am a good risk. :-)

My sister Kellie will be travelling overseas for a few months later this year, leaving in about 4 weeks time, so I will be looking after her house, her car, and her cat while she is gone (I do hope the cat survives… and the car too I guess. And actually now I come to think of it, the house may also be in danger of not getting cleaned quite as often as it does now ;-) )

So I will be living on my own, which will be interesting… If anyone fancies coming to Perth for a visit, please do let me know as I will probably be desperate for some company before long…..

Back in the land of the living…

Filed under: Random Thoughts, God Stuff, Humanitarian Stuff, Health — Heidi at 5:29 am on Sunday, July 1, 2007

I wonder if I will rue the day that I gave my family access to my blog? Goodness me, I think everyone in the world knew more about my condition than I ever did until very recently. I guess I am glad as without the prayers of all of my wonderful friends around the world I might not be here right now to write about it!!

Hello everyone! It’s me!! Really me writing this all by myself! I am home from hospital much earlier than any expectations, and I am finally managing to drag myself onto the computer to let everyone know how well I am doing.

I am told that I should still be in South Africa Hospital for the next 3 weeks before I will be stable enough to come home to Perth and then possibly another three months in hospital in Perth before coming home to Mum and Dad’s house so you can imagine my relief to find myself in my parent’s home only 3 and a half weeks after being diagnosed with HUS. Especially after also being told that I nearly died several times except for a series of miraculous interventions on behalf of God! I cannot say that I am feeling well, but much better than I was, and I hope for a full recovery in a very short period of time.

I have to apologise to all of my non-religious friends for the overwhelming amount of religiousness in all of the previous posts (and this one) but you see, I have special insight now and I know that an awful lot of you were shooting of prayers left, right and center when you knew what a terrible situation I was in. I have to say thank you, thank you, thank you, because God listened, and he answered, and I am here today because of it.

I know that many of you will have lots of questions about what happened, and probably about MSF too, but I don’t think I will have the energy for all of that just now. I will briefly explain about the illness and will spend some time on what happened in Itang a little later on. That is all a little painful at the moment as I need to spend some time working on just how I feel about being ripped out of my dream job and country and sent back home where I feel I don’t really belong just now.

I first got ill with diarrhea around the 19th May. I didn’t think anything of it as everyone gets these things when one visits a foreign country like Ethiopia. It didn’t effect my daily work and lasted about five days. After this it turned into bloody diarrhea with abdominal cramping and severe vomiting. I was working in a Health Centre and the doctors were trying very hard to work out what was wrong with me, but any samples showed no parasites or bacteria. I was getting sicker and sicker and they decided that they needed to send me to the capital Addis Ababa to a hospital for further attention. Unfortunately this isn’t so easy as there are only 3 flights a week, and the next flight was full.

Luckily for me, one of my close local friends was good friends with the ticketing officer of Ethiopia Airlines and managed to get me on a flight. If he hadn’t, I’m told I would have died.

When I left Itang, I thought I was leaving for about three days. I barely packed any of my things, and I didn’t really get the opportunity to say goodbye to all of my friends. I have never seen them or spoken to them again, something that is very painful for me to deal with.

I was picked up and taken straight to the best private hospital in Addis where I remained for a week. I didn’t realise that I was getting sicker and sicker but the MSF people in Addis did, and it was the Medical Director who made the call to have me Medi-Vacced to Johannesburg. If he hadn’t made the call when he did, I would have died within a day.

I have very little memory of the events after I arrived in Johannesburg. It is a maze of machines, and tubes, and blood transfusions, and oxygen and no-one told me how sick I was, or that there were several times I was within hours of death. It was also a time of being uplifted and knowing that I was being held in the hands of Christ. Every day emails were pouring in from all of the world telling me that people were praying for me, and that angels surrounded me. People I knew, people I didn’t know, churches I had never heard of. This was the one thing that sustained me through all of the pain and the sickness.

There were several times where I heard the quiet voice of Christ assuring me of healing, and usually it was the next morning when some miraculous breakthrough would have happened over night.

I don’t know why I was ripped out of Itang and sent back home. I don’t understand why God would let this happen to me when all I have ever wanted to do was serve him. But throughout this all, I remain convinced that he is sovereign, and that his plans will be served not mine. I will do my best to follow him no matter what the cost.

I am not yet at a place where I can consider the future, but I think it will come very soon, and I will let you know when I start walking down that road.

Thanks once again for your amazing support without which I wouldn’t be here.

God bless all.

Heidi
xxxxxxxxxx

Heidi - June 28

Filed under: Health — steve at 11:38 pm on Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Hello everyone
Such is the nature of Heidi’s illness that one day her health is really good and promising and in fact she had hoped to be home early this week. Read the news from Ronny.
Heidi would welcome visitors but you should check with the ward first. Please remain loyal to your prayers for her, that she will continue to grow in strength and her recovery complete.

Blessings
Don  
 
 
 
Greetings all
We arrived home safely from Johannesburg last Friday and Heidi was taken straight to Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital for her continuing treatment.  She handled the flight reasonably well but her accompanying doctor was somewhat concerned about her condition upon arrival. Next day, there was better news - she was doing very well and coming home to us on Tuesday.  Tuesday arrived and we were confronted with the fact that she now had pneumonia (although later that evening her X-rays showed that her lungs were clear).  This morning she sounds a little better and she has been put in a four bed ward and maybe coming home on Friday??
 
 
We are told, it will take a long time for Heidi to recover completely and she will need to work very hard and with determination to regain her strength and mobility.  This terrible condition (HUC/TTP) (or HUS/TTP? - Ed) can recur at any time, which puts the fear of dread into us, as you can imagine.
 
 
Again, we thank you all (including the many, many friends of Heidi’s who responded through her BLOG) for your wonderful and generous support through messages, flowers and particularly prayers.  The medical experts in Joburg and here are amazed at how quickly she improved and was able to return to OZ.  We ask for your continued prayer for her as her body has been so traumatised and still needs much healing - and not only physical.
As for Michael, Kellie and me - well, we are just plain “beat”!
With much love
Ronny
 

Coming Home! Update

Filed under: Health — steve at 6:29 pm on Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Hi Everyone
It is now Thursday afternoon and the good news is WE ARE COMING HOME!!  We leave tomorrow night at 10:00pm and arrive home Friday afternoon, around 2:00pm-ish.  For those interested, it is flight number SA280, so please pray for us for a safe journey. 
The plan is for us to all meet at the hospital with the doctor who will be travelling with us.  Heidi will then travel by ambulance to the airport with us following in a taxi.  She, the lucky duck, is going Business Class, so Mum, Dad and I will be in cattle class, trying to sneak forward like Elaine in Seinfeld!!  An ambulance will take Heidi straight to Charles Gairdner at the Perth end and we’re not sure what we will be doing as yet.
It has been an incredible feat to get this flight - once again God has blessed us greatly.  So many different people had to be contacted and bits and pieces organised - it was a headache for all ones with their fingers in the pie!
Dad and I have just left Heidi at the hospital - we’d gone to have lunch and when we came back Heidi had had her lines taken out of her neck!  She looks totally normal again - noone seeing her now would believe how very very sick she has been (and still is actually - now she is just ‘critical’ rather than ‘acute’).  We had to look at the photos I’d taken of her the day I arrived just to remember how awful she looked connected to all the machines in the ccu.  She has received a bit of physio and managed to walk to the bathroom and back to the bed this morning without having to hold onto anyone.
So, we will see you all soon.
Much love
Kellie

Coming Home!

Filed under: Health — steve at 6:32 pm on Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Hi everyone
this news came from Ronny this morning
Blessings
Don
After much too-ing and fro-ing, we are leaving Joburg on Thursday night at 10:05pm on the same flight as Heidi.  She will be flying business class with a doctor in attendance.  We have spent the day with the MSF Mozambique Director who flew in to help us, the MSF Joburg Director and the Insurance Consultant.  It has been a gruelling day of phone calls, disappointments (they initially said no flight available for another 2 weeks) and great excitement.  Dr Hsu rushed in at lunch time, thumbs up and shouting good news “ you don’t need any more treatment here.  We will take out the line in your neck and no more dialysis. You can go home!”   

  

Have 46 emails to read and respond to so cant say any more at this time. 

  

God is good, God is great, God is a God of miracles!  The prayers of many have been answered as there is no possible way that she could have recovered the way she has through medical scientific means according to the experts here.  There is much to tell you all and cant wait to get home. 

  

Much love 

Ronny  

 

Heidi - June 15 - From Mike

Filed under: Health — steve at 8:50 pm on Sunday, June 17, 2007

Michael wrote this update a couple of days ago when Heidi was in a very bad way. Two days on and things are brighter - however, we remain cautious as her condition changes from hour to hour, minute to minute. Today, on paper, they are happy with her progress.

No response is necessary or expected.

With love …..

Dear Friends, Friday 15th June 2007

Up to now all the emails that have been passed to our friends around the world have been composed (at great personal cost) by my wife Ronny or by my daughter Kellie. It is now my turn to try and reflect for you what has been going on for me (and for us from my perspective) in these last few days while our beloved daughter Heidi has been fighting for her life.

 

At the moment it is 5.30am which is the sort of time when I am usually awake and praying (and there is no-one else on the computer so that I can fumble away without making anyone else impatient).

 

Life seems to have commenced again for me 9 days ago on Wednesday the 6th June (my late mother’s birthday) when in the early hours of the morning we received the call from Joburg which made us realize our younger daughter was critically ill and that we must get to her as soon as possible. That became Ground Zero (or Day 1) for me (it is now Day 9).

 

From that point onwards all of us have been on an emotional rollercoaster oscillating between despair and hope. We now know that at times Heidi has been (probably several times) – and may still be in the near future - within hours or less of dying and that only a series of miracles have saved her. We have experienced what it is to be absolutely helpless in the face of imminent disaster and to know the complete terror that goes with that. We also know that unless some amazing further miracle intervenes our girl is facing a difficult future with severe physical damage. We have seen her struggling for breath, her arms flailing, her eyes rolling in her severely jaundiced face while the machines sound their mournful bells and we have seen the staff come running as we retreat in panic to get out of their way. I have stood behind a blue curtain entirely focused on the bottoms of the trousers of the doctor and nurse on the other side doing whatever these professionals do.

 

I have sat opposite Ronny at a café table over lunch neither of us speaking because we each knew exactly what the other was thinking - none of it good. That has been the horror of our experience.

 

But there has also been another, almost unfathomable side, running with this in harmony with it – an experience of being held, loved, comforted and reassured by a host of angels. Never in our lives did we expect anything like this. To come to a foreign country, knowing no-one, and within hours to be contacted by people we have never even heard of with offers of practical love and support – accommodation (9 offers to date!), motor vehicles, food, hugs and friendship – has completely blown our minds. Outside the CCU we have met other people – like us battling their own anxieties – who have reached out to us to comfort and encourage us (one family even offered us accommodation!).

 

Then there has been what has become a world wide network of other angels, you messengers of the Most High, with your messages of love and concern from all around the world, thousands upon thousands of you, reaching out to us and up to Him on behalf of our precious daughter. There are the flooding emails (some bringing healing laughter) which Ronny and Kellie have been struggling to answer. There is the kindness (and encouraging faith) of the immensely professional doctors and the smiling support and occasionally wondrous faith of the nurses who attend Heidi around the clock.

 

Yesterday, at the end of an immensely exhausting day of weakness, pain, nausea and discomfort caused by her continuing transfusion/dialysis, I was on the late “shift” sitting beside Heidi. She was at last asleep, her face at peace, breathing smoothly, the numbers on the machine causing no concern and no bells ringing. She slept for about an hour while I prayed over her and then woke and was able to talk with me for over an hour without pain. Her face is set towards a productive future – a future full of service and love towards others. She is immensely grateful towards all of you and towards the Great God who continues to breathe life into her. When I left the hospital I felt great peace and a kind of joy.

 

I wrote to my dear friend and secretary Glenis a few days ago that our continuing experience is one of “Love and Fear”. I can tell you that from time to time I at least have experienced what it is for the Love to Drive Out the Fear.

 

The future is clouded in mystery. We live one day (sometimes one hour) at a time. We (and the whole Body of Christ – which has become for us a living, breathing reality) are in His Hands.
 

May the Lord Bless and Keep each one of you in His Hands for ever.

 

In Love,

 

Michael

Heidi - June 14

Filed under: Health — steve at 6:12 pm on Sunday, June 17, 2007

 Dear friends at home and around the world

This will be short as I have now spent 2 hours on two separate occasions preparing a comprehensive update and just as I am about to close off, the whole message has disappeared from the screen…TWICE!  I am ready to throw a brick through this computer.

So – there is improvement in Heidi’s condition.  No plasma exchange or dialysis yesterday.  She sat in the garden with us for a short time but still needed oxygen and became very tired.  Her colour is returning and her body not so swollen.

She is lucid and talkative and planning her future, which for those of you who know her well, will understand are BIG, exciting and challenging plans.  She still has a very long way to go and new symptoms are appearing.  Doctors say she may be able to return to Oz in a week but we are cautious as things change so rapidly.  She had a fit the day before yesterday and this was a terrifying thing to witness.  Yesterday, they could not wake her.  Her oxygen levels are erratic and this is worrying.

There have been miracles and Heidi will have to tell you herself what has happened to her.  It is too personal for me to describe.

We are being spoilt beyond belief by the people in this amazing country.  We were taken to the Joburg Country Club yesterday for lunch.  It was a gorgeous place and we felt very posh.  The lady who has given us her car for the duration is Margaret Sunter and her husband Clem had a significant role to play in the ending of apartheid.  He worked alongside Nelson Mandela and Bishop Tutu and we are having dinner with them next Monday.  They are very keen for us to stay with them but we probably won’t as it is too hard to keep adjusting to new environments.,  Our hosts Janet and Tony have cared for us very carefully – given us our space and are just there when needed.  We are so very blessed.

MSF Switzerland call us every day and have offered to pay our expenses.  They are very kind and supportive and I think very shocked at what has happened to Heidi.

The prayers of (we believe thousands around the world) are being answered.  God is alive, He is listening and He is healing our girl.

Wish I had the energy to rewrite what I have lost but can’t manage another word.

With love and appreciation to all of you who hold us in your prayers.

God bless you

Ronny Michael and Kellie

Heidi - June 15

Filed under: Health — steve at 6:09 pm on Sunday, June 17, 2007

Sadly, this has been our worst day so far and we have all been to hell and back.

Heidi is back on dialysis and has had two more blood transfusions today.  She had excruciating chest pains and thought she was having a heart attack.  She was vomiting again and only able to communicate with us in a very limited way.  She just lay in her bed like a limp doll with hardly enough energy to squeeze our hand.

We have been with her all day (mostly one at a time) and when her dialysis had finished tonight, a nurse came in to take more blood (Heidi has had around 17 of these and her arms are black with bruises and very painful).  I left her room while this took place and when I returned she was half sitting up in bed and asked, “So where’s the vampire gone?”  with a cheeky grin on her face.  I have spent most of my day close to, or in tears, and to hear her say this lifted my spirits no end.  She ate her whole dinner and when I waved her goodbye she blew me kisses.  I hate to think what MY blood pressure is!  Sadly, she will be back on plasma exchange again tomorrow.

Dr Su took as aside this morning and told us some hard truths.  We already knew this in our hearts, but he had never actually said until now how very close to death she has been.  If they had kept her in Addis one more day, she would not have survived. 

He said that we all must now PRAY FOR FULL HEALING OF HER KIDNEYS as they are extremely likely to be so damaged that she will have to have a transplant or continual dialysis.  If you have any energy left, could you please continue to pray specifically for this.  He said the sooner she returned home the better and was hopeful that this would be early next week.  She will be sent in an SOS MediVac jet.

We love and appreciate you all so very much…

Ronny, Michael and Kellie  xxxx

 

Heidi - June 16

Filed under: Health — steve at 6:06 pm on Sunday, June 17, 2007

The first thing that everyone needs to know is that the wonderful prayers that you have been offering HAVE BEEN AND ARE BEING ANSWERED.  Although we have had our down days, the overall progress that Heidi is making is quite remarkable.  She has gone from a condition in which she was near death, to a position barely eight days later, where this morning she was moved to a private room with a view (still under the care of CCU with attending nurse who never leaves her).  She is again bright, talkative, smiling and planning the future. 

 

After a frighteningly difficult day yesterday when we were told to expect the worst, we went to the hospital with some anxiety, to be told by her treating physician that the doctors now have hopes of a complete recovery - which we had all, almost discounted.  THIS IS A MIRACLE  (and the doctors agree)!  We are exhausted and cautious but deeply thankful.

 

God bless you all.

Ronny, Michael and Kellie

 

PS  As you will probably be aware, these updates are going to a large number of people, most of whom have requested a very detailed account of her progress.  No doubt, some of you may prefer to have a shorter summary so please forgive us if you don’t want all this information.  I will write again in a couple/few days.

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