O2B1F2E. PATIENCE AND COMPASSION 2023-06-28

MOMENTS IN OUR LIFE-2  2026-06-29

O2B1F2E. PATIENCE AND COMPASSION 2023-06-28

Two big concepts that became a reality for us here at Ametis. Previously, patience had the normal meaning for us, mainly towards other people or circumstances, but now we learn to have it towards each other. I can sometimes be short-tempered, but now I am forced to learn to be patient towards Rinie.

When we get up in the morning, for example, she will say she wants to put on the black chequered pants, check if they are not in the laundry. No, they are not there. Then look in the wardrobe, under the dresses. No, I don't see them there either. Look between the clothes at the foot of the bed. (Remember, everything hasn't found a place yet – brother Louis' friend is still busy making extra cupboards for the two of us so that everything that's still lying around can get behind doors.) No, I don't see it there either. Now I'm starting to get a little impatient. Then I look between the trousers under the dresses for the black trousers with the wide waistband. I take out a pair of black trousers. No, it's not that one. Then I take out the whole pile. She flips through them and eventually decides on one at the bottom with a wide waistband. I grit my teeth a little, but I realize she can't help it.

As Rev. Johannes Nortier said, none of this is her fault. Some things just happen. Her stroke could have happened to anyone else, but it happened to her. She now has to learn to be patient with her circumstances. With the fact that she is confined, for the time being, to our bed and her wheelchair, and mainly to the four walls of Ametis 122.

She was a capable woman who could handle anything and who was involved in a lot. Now she probably often has to grit her teeth when I am so slow. Like most women, she could multi-task, and it frustrates her when I can only do one thing at a time, because I get confused when I try to do more things together. It frustrates her because she has now become a spectator to almost everything.

She is still mainly paralyzed in her left arm and leg. When she eats, she tries to balance the plate on her legs while she uses the fork or spoon in her right hand to bring the food to her mouth. We press a towel roll sheet at the top of her neck to keep her clothes clean. You don't realize how dependent you are on your two hands. The other day we were drinking coffee and she was squeezing the cup between her knees while dipping a rusk in the coffee. But her left leg couldn't push inwards, so the cup fell through and the coffee spilled on the carpet. Frustration. I want to be annoyed, but I realize that she still wants to do things herself, to be a little independent, even if it's just in the little everyday things. She tells me to throw a towel over the spot and step on it to suck out the coffee, then with clean water with just a small squirt of Sunlight Liquid, then step again, a few more times, and then rub dry. I am learning new things.

Now when we eat or drink something where there is a risk, I hold the plate or cup near her mouth for her to eat or dip the rusk with her good right hand. She still wants to do everything she can do herself as much as possible, but she allows me to help. My coffee just stands there getting cold until she has finished drinking hers. I've learned to accept it that way.

I need to take her with me more when I have to go out to do something. It will make her feel more involved, even though she is in a wheelchair. Today I went to Nedbank (long wait) and Vodacom in Somerset Mall, and while I was there I went to Ster-Kinekor to see if it was wheelchair friendly. There is provision in the back row, so when we go there again to FICA her Nedbank card (they need her fingerprint), we can go to the movies. It will also make her feel involved, and not just a passenger.

As time goes on, we are forced to learn to have more understanding for each other, to be more patient, and this will also become part of our attitude towards other people. Here we are in a retirement village, with many other people like us, some older and some more frail. Patience and compassion are what we will need here more than ever. Then we will enjoy staying here. I have already made contact with quite a few new people here, and I can see that there will be many stories to be found here, because every person has a story for those with a patient ear.

A DECLARATION OF LOVE

I love you

Now with a deeper love than before

Now that you need it more

You with the blue eyes

Blue like the cloudless sky on a summer day.

I love you Mother of our children

More since you have become so dependent on me

How could I not

You, who all your life

gave yourself to us

Even, and especially the times when we did not realize it.

I wish I had valued you more

Earlier, when you were still whole

And had so much to give

And gave, without expecting anything in return

My darling

You will walk again

It is just taking longer than we thought.

But in the meantime I'm here for you

To give back a little

Of the love you give

You have so generously

Showered on us for almost 45 years.

Thank you Lord for giving me the opportunity

To be able to give her, to be able to do something

Now that our lives have become so limited

Let me do the little I do with joy

To cheer her up

The few times I notice that she feels down

And just sits with her head down on the side of the bed.

I have to be the light in her day now

Let me do it with gladness

When I get up in the morning

Greet her with four kisses

And when we go to bed at night

I put Snowy against her cheek

Snowy that Marinus sent her from Australia.

She, and I, miss our children very much

Our two beautiful boys

Who are living on the other side of the globe

But we console ourselves

That they have a better life and future there

Also, and especially for their children.

Fortunately, they can see

With our WhatsApp every second Saturday

That we are doing well

And we can tell by their body language

That they continue to love us, as we love them.

WE MOVE TO THE STRAND – PART 1

I am now sitting here in Ametis 122, the Strand, in the winter sun like a badger. Our apartment faces north and if the sun shines, even just a little, you can feel it when you enter the front door. The weather outside is variable - the weather office predicted heavy rain later today.

I have this desire to write, and I now have the time. Tomorrow it will be a month that we have been living here in this retirement home. Time passes so quickly. At first it seems slow, things seem chaotic and uncertain, but now that we are getting used to the new circumstances, the days are passing faster. We have nothing to worry about here, not a garden or a swimming pool where you have to add chlorine every other day. If the wind blows strongly, you don't have to worry about the roof tiles or the leak in the living room when it rains.

We miss Eric and Susan, but here we have made several new friends in two months, and I foresee that we will make many more as time goes on. There are many people here in the same circumstance as we are, because it is a home for the elderly. Yes, we are now at that stage of our lives. It has crept up on us so quietly. At first we never thought about it, because when you are young, the here and now is all that exists for you – getting old is for old people. Now it is upon us, and it is not so bad after all.

Rinie is still struggling, more than I am, to get used to the new life here. I think because she grew up on a farm, she doesn't move as easily from one place to another, and especially not this time, because we have lived in Wellington for 34 years. You put down roots in such a long time, and she was very active in Wellington: ACVV (also on the board), VLV, Horticulture, Pilates, and eleven years of Crafty Kids. It happened quite often that a big child or young adult would greet her when we were somewhere: "Hello Teacher!", then Rinie would recognize her or him – "That was one of my Crafty Kids children." She worked very hard at that time and was sometimes very tired at night, but still derived a lot of pleasure from the contact with her children, I think some as young as 4 years old up to St. 5. Not older, because at that age children sometimes become headstrong and difficult to deal with. She had 66 children at a time.

Rinie is a hoarder by nature – she doesn’t throw anything away easily, and when we moved from a large four-bedroom house with a large lounge, large dining room and large living room, to a small one-bedroom apartment, it was very difficult for her to let things go.

Christiaan came from New Zealand for two weeks during his school holidays to help us move. I was very grateful for his help. Rinie was of course confined to her wheelchair and bed, so she couldn’t be present for much of the selection process to decide what could go with us and what should be auctioned. What should go to the Hospice and ACVV, and what should be given to the residents of the social housing on Perdeskoen Road (they came running to carry the bags away later when we stopped and honked, even in the rain). Which was just as well, because Rinie wanted to keep almost everything, and that simply wasn’t possible.

She had a lot of dresses - she saved up for them during the years she gave Crafty Kids when she had money to buy them. I remember how Christiaan would take the dresses out of the cupboards, show them to her, and she had to make a choice whether she wanted to keep a dress, or whether it could go to the ACVV or Hospice. Then she would decide that she wanted to keep most. Christiaan quickly forced her to choose – we were in the empty apartment 122 in Ametis, and saw how limited hanging space there was in both built-in cupboards. In Mont Pellierlaan, she hung dresses in the hanging space in our bedroom, in Christiaan’s room, Marinus’s room and in the spare room as well.

We packed most of the soft and loose items in strong black and green plastic bags. Christiaan made Rinie choose 8 bags – the other 8 we took to the ACVV store. I can understand to some extent why Rinie wanted to keep everything, because she paid thousands of Rands for it and she has good taste; many of those dresses have probably never been worn. She loved to shop at Milady’s. But we had no choice here – as we repeatedly told her: “There’s no room here, Mom.” As it is now, both of the built-in wardrobes’ hanging space are full of her dresses, and there are two more black bags full of dresses. I told her she could work through those two black bags later and choose which dresses she wanted to keep, then she would have to go through those that were already hanging and take out the same number of dresses that would then have to go to the Hospice.

In those two weeks, Christiaan did an enormous amount of work. He threw everything out of the garage and the attic – Krisjan drove away three 3-ton loads, including all my tools. I had to buy myself a small set of R400 so that I would at least have something for the most basic tasks.

WE ARE MOVING TO THE STRAND – PART 2

We heard the same thing from several of our friends who also had to downsize: Of everything you have accumulated over many years, you can only take a small part with you. You can sell some with difficulty, and have what is left sold by an auctioneer. Otherwise, you will end up with things that no one wants, and the buyer of your house will want to move into an empty house. You may end up with a lot of things that you have to give to a second-hand store for free just to get them off your hands.

Initially, Christiaan said that we should draw up three lists:

· What we are taking with us to Ametis;

· What we want to store, what we might need later if Rinie recovers to the point where we can move to a bigger place (e.g. a 2-bedroom apartment or house in a security resort);

· What can be sold or auctioned off.

After several of our friends, especially Chris Erasmus, advised us against storing our things, we decided to auction everything off (clean out the house). The reasons are that wooden furniture would crack under the zinc roof of the storage place in Wellington’s extreme heat; the cost (R10,000 per year); and when you move to a bigger place one day, the extra room may be too small for your furniture (Mummy's big buffet with mirrors). Chris also says that washing machine pumps freeze up from standing for a long time, and the fridge and freezer don't like being out of work for so long.

We initially thought about using Boland Auctions for the auction, because Alistair Brown has a good reputation, but he doesn't clean the house – he only sells certain things – what do we do with the rest? Then we heard of Lettie Lourens' Toeka Auctioneers at Old Tannery. She came to us the same day I called her and said she was cleaning the house out, auctioning everything (even floor rags!). She really made a good impression on us with her open, honest nature and I decided on her.

We asked Tash-lynn Gous, Rinie's carer, to clean the floors after Lettie and her workers had removed everything from the house, so that Johan Burger could enter a clean house. The last things were removed on Friday, June 2.

We have lived happily for the 34 years since we moved in on June 6, 1989. Mont Pellierlaan 17 is a lovely home. But our circumstances changed in an instant with Rinie's stroke. Marinus read the situation correctly and realised that we could not continue like this, and I am eternally grateful to him for that. I think I would have cracked under the pressure afterwards, and what would then have become of Rinie, because she is so dependent on me?

Marinus and his family were on their way to Australia. Their tickets had already been bought for April 20. He had been searching the Internet since early March for alternative accommodation for us where Rinie could receive 24/7 care. There are not many such places, and often where there are, husband and wife are separated, with the sick person in a sick bay (R24,000 p.m.) in a small single room, while the healthy person has to live alone in an apartment, which would not be acceptable to us. We would not have been able to afford it either.

He then came across Ametis, where there is a 24/7 Frail Care facility (Oasis R12,500 p.m.) and luckily there was a double apartment available (R18,815 p.m.)! And we could stay there together! I immediately called and said we were taking the apartment (122) and I paid the deposit of R40,000. The builders were then able to get on with renovating the apartment – ​​new laminated wood floors, walls painted light grey, white ceilings and built-in cupboards, and the bath was broken out and replaced with a wheelchair-friendly shower.

Around the same time I put our house in the market with Seeff and Rawson. The first potential buyer that Rawson’s Carmen brought signed the purchase contract! She sat with me that evening with Johan Burger on her cell phone. The original price in my pocket was R2,716,000. Carmen said he asked if I could come down R16,000, then I would get R2,700,000. I said OK. Then he asked if I was willing to come down another R20,000, then he’ll sign. Then I said OK for R2,680,000 in my pocket. Rawson’s commission is R140,000, so he signed for R2,820,000.

It was a gift sent from heaven. Selling a house can sometimes take months. And accommodation in a Frail Care unit is as scarce as hen's teeth. Now both have fallen into our laps; the apartment in the Strand, walking distance from the sea, where we went looking for a house a few years ago to get away from the Wellington summer heat.

I remember we went to look at three houses here in the Summer-Strand area. We could afford the move if we sold our house in Wellington. Then one day Rinie and I went for a walk in the Horseshoe to that little bridge just past Hildebrand Wine Estate. We chatted for a while under the trees and there together decided to put the trek to the Strand on ice for now until the children have finished their studies. And there the idea was forgotten.

NIKLAAS THYSEN: CHINESE MASSAGER 2023-07-06

Niklaas comes to Ametis every second Friday, then he massages those on the first floor (Frail Care) who are interested, at no cost – it must be a free service that Ametis offers. The Management apparently pays him. He came to massage Rinie here in our apartment last Friday, and we were very impressed. So we made a weekly appointment for Rinie to see him in his rooms in Gordon's Bay, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:00, because we believe he can really help her walk again.

Audrey Mallet from Spescare called today to say that LA Health has approved 24 PMB (Prescribed Medical Benefit) sessions of physiotherapy for Rinie, which is very good news. We believe that the physiotherapy and Niklaas' massage can work in parallel for Rinie, to achieve her ideal faster of being able to walk again. These are two different sciences that we want to use. Niklaas says today that he used R60,000 of his own money for courses in Mowbray, Cape Town, where he was trained in different facets of Oriental medicine. He has also been to Hanyang County, China for training. He is not tall in stature, but from his movements you can see that he is supple and muscular.

We moved Rinie from her wheelchair to his adjustable bed, on her back. He threw towels over her weak leg and started working on it. I was a silent spectator. He works quickly and uses his fingers, thumbs, palms and sometimes even his elbows. His hands are very flexible and he often "pummels" (pounds) Rinie's affected limbs with his palms with quick movements. Sometimes he presses with his thumbs and rubs the limb from bottom to top. Sometimes he makes tapping movements with his hands and fists on her muscles. He slowly lifts her knee on his arm and pushes her foot down and slowly turns it from side to side – this is the foot that steps so crookedly on its side.

He of course works mainly with the left leg and left arm, the side where Rinie is paralyzed. He says the pathways from the brain to the limbs need to be re-established. After working with her leg, he shifted his attention to the arm and hand. Rinie's arm muscles have been very stiff for the past few months. When she sometimes wants to lie in my arm at night, her left arm is pressed hard against her body and I have to slowly but forcefully pull her arm to lie over my chest. Her left hand is also typically clenched due to disuse and it needs to be consciously slowly forced open. Niklaas now works on her hand, slowly opening and rubbing the fingers one by one. He massages her hand both on the bottom and the top.

You can tell by his decisive movements that he knows what he is doing – it is not just a simple massage of the muscles. Even her head, neck and ears get their turn. When he pats her head with his hands, her paralyzed left leg, which was bent, suddenly straightened!

Niklaas says it is important that she also believes in the success of the treatments. I think you could call it a holistic approach. During the entire session he played soft, calming music, and I saw a candle burning in the corner, probably with incense.

Rinie says she definitely feels better after each hour-long session. Overall, we are very satisfied and we will definitely continue with it as long as Rinie feels positive about it. I think it is very important that she should have more sessions per week than just the one physiotherapy treatment. And Niklaas only charges R200 for an hour session, where the physiotherapists charge more than R500 for three quarters of an hour. I believe we will soon see the results of these treatments.