Tummy tickling…

CHRIS BENNETT has been to see the heart reader again.

I HAVE just a few days ago been released from the Zuid-Afrikaanse Hospital in Pretoria. Maybe I should say Tshwane, but until the abysmal newsreaders on SABC3 learn to pronounce the name properly, and not make it sound like ‘Swannee’ belted out with all his bootblack gusto by Al Jolson, I shall continue to call it Pretoria. It should be something like: tʃwʹane.

This fine institution, the hospital, not Pretoria, in which care and compassion are everywhere, offers a glimpse of maintenance and management at the cutting edge of that tedious but critically essential discipline, so to speak. It is shiningly evident in the floors of the wards, the corridors and theatres, in the eyes and attitudes of the staff. Many of the staff actually listen to what you are saying.

I was admitted for the fitting of a pacemaker, a fairly simple process, but a life-changing one when you don’t know where the next gulp of air is coming from.

As is usually the case during the procedure, I was not present, my mind having been put in a box marked, “Mind in neutral; do not shake, rattle or roll. This way up”. My innerds had become bit confused, and the pacemaker was making the pace for the diaphragm as well as the heart. I looked as though I was permanently doing the rhumba.

Once again, when welcomed back into the world of reality, I found myself listening to the surgeon’s reassuring words about what he had done. A bit like hearing confession from the Pope.

It was quite a salutary lesson, becoming aware of the role of oxygen in out lives and our environment.

Tourism is the oxygen of our chosen home, here on the incomparable South Coast. A visiting friend from France once exclaimed, on seeing my view of the ocean, its life and its business, “Who needs the Bahamas?”

Who indeed.

Like the oxygen supply to our hearts, everything down here depends on our delivering the supply of enthusiasm and respect we owe to our visitors. We shouldn’t falter.

CB

26/02/09

360 wds