Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Why I No Longer Support Heinrich van Rooyen


FRAMED 

I think that I owe my readers the reason why I have withdrawn from everything to do with Heinrich van Rooyen.  He was a man who was convicted of killing two girls in Knysna in 2005.  I did a lot of research and trawled the court records as well as the police dockets and am convinced that he is NOT responsible for the crimes that he is being punished for.

I have spent three years working on this case, visiting Heinrich in prison, helping out with money, getting him things he needed, spent thousands on telephone calls and hundreds of hours discussing the case with people who are qualified in forensic science and so forth.  I have even had death threats because I have stood up for him and wanted justice done, not only for Heinrich to be released but that the real murderers are put behind bars so that there is justice for the two murdered girls as well.    Heinrich is innocent.  He did not murder those girls.
However, I have withdrawn from him because over time, I have found him to be extremely arrogant, demanding, unbelievably manipulative and a liar.   And as he was manipulating me into giving in to his demands, especially for money, he was doing the same to my Facebook friends who were coughing up without me knowing but thinking that I knew about it.   My true friends know I do not have money so were happy to put the money into the Heinrich basket because of their love for me and not because of their love of Heinrich.     I found that I was pouring water into a leaking glass and trying to empty the sea with a bucket.
I will not allow myself to be made unhappy or used by anyone and certainly not by one who is being helped for nothing.  I am particularly saddened by the fact that my friends have been taken in by him as well – which just shows how intelligently he manipulates situations.
The rumour mill within his Justice for Heinrich van Rooyen Facebook group is very busy with Heinrich implying that I have taken money that belongs to him, that I am causing problems in prison for him and that I am the one who is stopping him from contacting his girlfriend because I have stopped every way possible for him to get a mobile phone in prison.  These are all lies. 
Again, I state that I do not believe he killed those girls, but I do not like him as a person and am happier to not have him in my life to upset me in any way.    I have other fights to win which are far more important than to me than his.   My fight for my own health is far more important than Heinrich’s predicament.   I am not surprised now that the judge called him arrogant and that his sentence was made heavier than would have happened if he were not so arrogant.
I have been a fool to have been taken in by him.  But once bitten, twice shy.   I am sorry if any of you have been used by him in any way. 

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Living with an Illness that has No Cure


“Anyone can carry his burden, however heavy, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely until the sun goes down. And this is all that life really means.” — Robert Louis Stevenson
When your life is a chronic, debilitating state of illness, there are no more lovely flowers, warm visits and clean sheets as you convalesce from an acute illness.  
Life now is a cold, harsh reality – like the aftermath of a tsunami where nothing makes sense anymore and the landscape of your life is so different you feel you have woken up in a nightmare of someone else’s life.  Your sometimes peaceful sleep is chased away by a “broken” body – one that no longer does what your mind tells it to do.
Some days you manage to get through the day, but because of your overwhelming lack of energy, that day you may not have had the energy to wash your face, let alone wash all the other working parts.  I always seem to manage to brush my teeth though.   Other days, I can say it was a success because not only did I manage to shower but I also washed and dried my hair.  Those days when I could do that one my own are over now and I rely on someone else to help me achieve this simple thing like washing myself and dressing.   On the days that I must go to the doctor or for some test, I cannot wash myself otherwise I don’t have the energy to walk to the vehicle (portable oxygen attached) to get to the doctor.
Never did I dream that my life would end like this.  Never did I dream that I would need a constant companion to wash me, dry me, dress me, change my linen or make a cup of tea for me.   But that time has come and the luxury of having someone bathe and dress me allows me some energy to sew, write or do some other thing that I love to do.  Gardening remains just something I stare out the window at. 
The demands of my body supersede everything else. You stave off the crash as long as you can.   I imagine that I still have the energy and the strength I once had and push myself so hard that I run out of energy and oxygen, more often than not landing on the floor and groaning because I can’t get the word “help” out and there is no one around to hear me anyway.  I now have a panic button hanging around my neck and never go anywhere, even with my portable oxygen, without my phone.  To go to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, I have to take all the things I may need if my body lets me down and I can’t get back to bed.    I manage my energy as best I can.   The best way for others to understand this energy thing is by looking up the spoon theory on google.  It is the best way of describing what it feels like to not have enough energy to accomplish even the smallest goals.  Just writing this is taking huge energy and the pain is indescribable – my arms are burning with lack of oxygen as I try to type.  I keep on having to stop mid-sentence because I cannot take the pain anymore.  I don’t have enough red blood cells to carry the oxygen and only have 37% lung capacity.   You try to be happy with less and want, need, hope and aspire to less.
I try to live measured and predictably but I cannot even predict how I will feel in an hour.  Making an arrangement to meet someone is pointless because I don’t know how I will feel and also that person may have been in contact with someone who is ill and then I cannot be in their company.  Living with an almost non-existent immune system and more than one cancer is not a walk in the park, although I have been accused of pretending to be ill by my female siblings – little do they know that I pretend to be healthy so well, that I should win an Oscar Award.
It can feel like you are a prisoner of your own body when you have a chronic illness for which there is no cure. It strains the spirit and taxes the soul.
Living with purpose and trying to make something out of what you’ve got to work with calls for conscious, dogged determination not to be defeated and to get up every time you get knocked down.   It forces me to dig deeper (although I think I have already hit rock bottom), try harder, be more courageous and to learn to think my way through my day without looking back and without looking forward more than an hour but at the same time finding something to do that brings me joy and gives me something to look forward to.
Some days nothing helps – no doctor, no friend, no family member can shake you out of that pain and suffering you are in.  It is a red haze of hell you are living in, right here on earth.   Surely death cannot be as bad as this.   I have to save myself.  I am the only one in this body and I am the only one who is going to die in this body – alone as I came into this world with no knowledge of what it is going to be like to stop breathing.
All things said and done, in the end, no matter how you analyze or describe it, and no matter how much help and support you have, some days, nothing seems to help – especially when there’s no cure. You feel beyond help. You must save yourself. Those who support, help and take care of you certainly help to ease the burden. I would not still be living without them. They are not taken for granted.
I live with hope and then see a doctor and come away feeling hopeless and helpless.  The only thing I know is that this is not going to go away – this illness is here to stay until it takes my last breath.   I continue to try to live with a spirit of grace, of acceptance, endurance and hope.  Nothing lasts forever.  Today, this week or even next month might be bad, BUT TOMORROW may be different.  Tomorrow hold the possibility of a thousand wonderful experiences.  Tomorrow will be different and even in the worst times, I still find much to be grateful for.

Monday, February 10, 2020

What is good for the goose is good for the gander - GIVE US BACK OUR LAND

Something many people do not know is that the White NP & APARTHEID government ALSO forced WHITES off their land by paying them out undervalued sums for their farms, businesses and properties so that they could be handed over to blacks in the establishment of the homelands. They also told white people living there that if there was going to be trouble, they would not assist us. We should leave if we wanted to be safe.
The Xhosa Development Corporation (XDC) in the Transkei, being one of the methods used for forcing whites to hand over their businesses and then neglecting to pay them. For centuries, the people of the Transkei co-existed in peace. And then, on top of that, whites still living in homelands were often escorted across borders and dumped on the other side of the border in the clothes they stood in. Twenty thousand whites woke up one morning (27/4/1976) to find that they were suddenly foreigners in the land of their birth, the Transkei. Suddenly we had to apply for permits to live and work in the land of their birth – many who had lived there for generations and had co-existed in peace with the ama-Xhosa people. MALEMA - we want our land back too - land appropriation without compensation - give us back our land!!! We were born there and our ancestors are born there.
Give us back our land, our houses, our shops and our villages!!! . Those are OUR ancestors lying in the Transkei - you make a fuss of us messing with your ancestors but you have done it to us. What is good for the good ANC ... what is good for the goose ....

Friday, February 7, 2020

An Unprofessional Medical Practitioner, the Health Professions Council of South Africa and Me


Email from me to various doctors and the Health Professions Council of South Africa.

This is just the end bit now and I have to do what I am being asked by the HPCSA which is going to take a couple of weeks to make sure that everything is perfect for a court of law.  I am about to destroy one doctor's profession and career and I do not do that lightly, however, her conduct has led to irreparable damage to my lungs and maybe the next person will die.  If I do not do this for myself, I must do it for the other patients that will at this point, be unfortunate to become her patient.

My Polygam treatment for December was booked but the day before, the doctor was missing and her receptionist said she would leave an urgent message - well, her holiday was more important.  On the 3rd January, I wrote the email below to her with copies to the HPCSA.


Dear Ntombi 

FOR ATTENTION:  Dr Y Jansen and the Sister in Charge

Thank you for the motivation but it is no longer required. 

Due to the total lack of response from your office, from your sister in charge and from Doctor Y Jansen herself, you left me no alternative but to seek medical help elsewhere.  This is after my husband visited your offices twice and left four messages and I had left umpteen messages for Dr Jansen and the Sister who never bothered to call back.   Everyone went on holiday and returned in late January.   I was very ill and went by ambulance to Dr Frida Pienaar in Bloemfontein who was horrified to see the condition her patient was in.     Hence, since November, I have been helped by physicians who actually care about me and do not wind their forefinger around their ears as a sign of mental illness as did Dr Y Jansen when she discharged me from the hospital.   Within 48 hours I was admitted to Life Hospital (because Netcare was on divert) and I had hospital-acquired pneumonia.  So much for Dr Y Jansen's "There are more germs in private wards".    This was another thing that the doctor did not think was necessary to give me a private ward or barrier nursing.  She showed no interest at all in my situation and I felt that she was more than annoyed by me, in fact, walking away from my bed when I was still speaking to her.   I also felt that she was irritated with me because I knew so much about my (rare) disease (which I do) which she knew nothing about but instead of us working together as I suggested, she remained aloof and uncaring. 

My husband did leave a form to be completed by Dr Jansen for further home treatment but she only completed the section for home oxygen.  I have been on home oxygen for three years.   Did she not even remember that?   Dr Jansen did not know me or my condition at all and instead of us working as a team, she humiliated and degraded me in front of others to the point that the psychiatrist I saw is of the opinion that I have PTSD caused by Doctors not treating me with respect and dignity or even bothering to listen to me. 


Yours truly 

Dianne Lang 

RESPONSE ONLY FROM BELOW AND NOT FROM THE PHYSICIAN: 

RE: MOTIVATION FOR POLYGAM TREATMENT


Inbox
x

Legal Med

AttachmentsThu, 6 Feb, 13:25 (2 days ago)
 to me
Dear Dianne

Kindly complete the attached form in full, sign and send it to Legalmed@hpcsa.co.za

To be acted upon by HPCSA, your complaint must
•             State clearly that you wish to complain against a healthcare professional and that the HPCSA should investigate your complaint;
•             Identify the healthcare professional (Doctor / Practitioner) against whom the complaint lodged, by including his/her surname, initials, practice address and practice registration number;
•             Detail the nature of the complaint, including all relevant dates and facts as well as supporting documentation were available;
•             Be signed by you, your legal representative or any other person lodging the complaint on your behalf; and
•             Include full contact details for correspondence purposes (such as requesting additional information regarding your complaint.



LegalMed
L & RA: Complaints Handling & Investigations
HEALTH PROFESSIONS COUNCIL OF SOUTH AFRICA
553 Madiba Street, Arcadia, 0083
PO Box 205, Pretoria, 0001
Tel:       +27 (0) 12 338 9300
Web:    http://www.hpcsa.co.za
Email:   Legalmed@hpcsa.co.za

Type of bruising from my illness if I am not treated with Polygam


I have to get my head around this and include everything that went down - this is a very watered down synopsis of what happened.   I am going to make this my priority next week and then I will take on the Heinrich van Rooyen case with the first interviews.    This kind of fight gives me butterflies in my stomach.  I can fight for others, but like all activists, it is difficult to fight for ourselves.  However, I will get those butterflies to fly in formation and I will do this so that others are not subjected to such unprofessional treatment.  After all, these people have our life and death in their hands. 

Thursday, February 6, 2020

There is No User Manual for Dying when You Have Much to Do.


It is in the wee hours of the morning when we feel most vulnerable and most alone.   It is 4.30 am and I am sitting at the computer (which is on a hospital bed stand) and wondering about so many thing - about how angry I am deep down inside, at what I am angry at ... what I could have done or not have done in my life - and wondering about my list of to-do now and if I will get through it all.   And then I wonder if what I need to do has any importance for anyone else other than for me.  Is it my need to achieve that spurs me on when the right thing would be to do nothing; to lie in bed and to read and to let the world pass me by and then slowly slip into the next life?
Patrick is asleep beside me and I am loath to wake him up - he works like a Trojan and he is no youngster.   It is hard to start all over again at the age of 60 but I am so proud of him.   He does so much for me that when he gets irritated with me, I have to understand how difficult this all is for him too.
After all the angst of yesterday (mine), I sit here this morning and try to find some sort of balance in my life.   I think what I have found and am sharing here will be good for all of us to read.   My fear that I don't have enough time to do what needs to be done has made me jittery, irritable, impatient and I think, quite rude and obnoxious at times.   I know this is happening to me, but there is no recipe for dying when you have so much to do.  And I am unable to stop my irritability with people – those on FB, on groups and those who are close to me like my mother and my husband.  Friends …. Well, friends are just that.  They are there when life is filled with fun but when you look around yourself in an hour of need, you find there is no one.   Some will pass on some nice words to give you strength (or so they think) but no one will think that to make me a cup of tea would be the greatest gift of all.  I am so dependent and that is hard – so fucking hard because I have been able to do everything for myself for so long.
I have to get Heinrich van Rooyen out of prison because he is there for life for crimes he did not commit.  No one else knows the case as well as I do.  So if I die today, he just stays there until maybe another Dianne comes along to go trawling through the paperwork again.   
Then I am doing what I think no one else has ever thought of doing – and that is making a military, SAP, veterans three-layered quilt using t-shirts that have been worn and loved by the men, including a number of “Free Eugene de Kock” t-shirts.  This project depends on how much help and assistance I get from the vets because they have to send me the t-shirts that they have loved wearing – the quilt will be made up of these veterans t-shirts.   It will then go on auction on the various FaceBook groups to raise funds so that Eugene de Kock has a retirement fund.  Quilts are very valuable and rare – the most expensive cost of one at auction could have bought a decent sized house for cash with some change left over.   So that is my project number 2.
Then, there are my own two books that need to be finished and published.  The one is almost ready for the printing and the other is going to be one on the imprisonment of Heinrich van Rooyen and what went down when the two girls were murdered in Knysna in 2005.   The horror of how justice was made to dance to the tune of those with money and drugs and power is a story that needs to be told.  I am writing it in such a way that it will be interviews with those closely involved with Heinrich and the heads of argument that would be what should have been put to the Constitutional Court – so if nothing else, that book can be taken by any advocate or lawyer or even layperson and an appeal can be made to re-open and re-examine the case of the murdered girls.  What I have to say about that is mind-blowing.  While Heinrich is not the killer – I do know who is.  I have, because of my activism, been the victim of threats of violence and death before, so what is happening now and the threats I am getting from those with the most to lose when this book is printed does not scare me in the least.  I have nothing to lose and they say that the person with nothing to lose is the one who is most dangerous of all.
Then there are the projects that others are helping me with and which will continue after my death.   a) Co-op for women who are extremely talented and who need a platform to market their crafts and goods b) a care worker and person needing caring to be put together that both parties are happy because right now, the agencies are making a fortune out of people who are struggling financially and the carer is getting less than 10% of what the agency chargers and c) taking the specialist physician to court for having neglected me to the point that at least six months of my life has been lost.  That doctor must answer to the degrading and humiliating behaviour she tried on me – by using her index finger and turning it around while it is pointed at her ear – intimating that there is nothing wrong with me and I should see a psychiatrist.  Well, I saw the psychiatrist who called in a few physicians and they all say that they have never seen such a neglected patient ever and are happy to be called to any law court to verify how I had been treated and neglected.  That story is enough for another whole book.  But Patrick carries the anger of all of that.
In between all this, I must be the strong one for my mother who is 86 and suffering from CCF whose husband of 30 years is also dying of cancer although he is a lot more difficult to deal with than I am.  My poor, poor mother – her oldest child and her husband dying of cancer and the child being so impatient with her and her husband’s bullshit.  He is not the only person who has lung cancer … there you have it, the anger coming out again.  Give my mother a break you miserable and selfish old miser!!
I think this is the last big thing I am doing and that is completing the proof=reading, editing and publishing of other people’s books.  But all these things bring me a certain amount of joy – not everything is drudgery.   I am just so very tired and overwhelmingly exhausted and frustrated that I cannot even wash myself.  Even a toothbrush and basin has to be brought to my bed and slowly...slowly a carer (her name is Zandi) will help me up and get me going on whatever needs to be done next.  She is my other set of eyes, my arms and my medication dispenser.  She is the one who gives me bed baths and changes my pull up nappies.   I am incontinent in my sleep – and it is the nature of the illness.
So…this is my life.  BUT, as I have told my doctor, that just because no one else has survived this, that does not mean that I won’t be the first.

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

What I Want You to Know about Me

 There is something that is weighing very heavy on my shoulders and my heart.  People do not realize how sick I am because I always am upbeat (most the time) and positive.   BUT, I will see someone after I have been walking or talking for 3 or so minutes and they will greet me.  I am physically unable to greet them back.  I do not have the oxygen in my body to make that response. I will then be greeted again, my name used and the words enunciated as though they are talking to a fool.  With my limited amount of energy I try to use eye contact, face movement and hand movement explaining that I am unable to talk yet and could they wait a while.  No one gets it.   They either turn away in disgust or turn away assuming that I think I am too good to be lowering myself to greet them (and that is true because I have asked later on when I can speak).  My frustration levels hit an all-time high with me wanting to die because I cannot breathe enough air to scream.   And when I have been talking to someone when I have the energy and we start laughing, I lose all energy and cannot continue the conversation and often just fall asleep through sheer exhaustion – sometimes just blacking out and not knowing when the person even left.
I cannot look after my own personal hygiene, I cannot walk to the toilet unaided, I cannot do a thousand things that you take for granted.  I cannot go into shops, I can’t buy what I need or even want to use for my crafts.   Even writing – I write for 30 minutes and then stop and have to wait until the pain from my arms becomes bearable and then I can start typing again.
And still, people want me to take up their batons and run with them for the things they are passionate about.  Not once does someone thing – “Gee, I wonder if Di would like a cup of tea?”   or “How does she manage to wash her hair?”.
I still have a fucking good brain and I can still do a lot of things and say a lot of things in writing that others are afraid to say – but I need help.   I need help to hire someone to bed bath me and make me tea and change my linen and to pass me the things I am going to work on that day in bed.  
I want to die with my boots on but without YOUR help, this is not going to happen.   Why do people say they will help and they don’t?   Why do people no longer use their word as their honour?   Why does no one care now at this stage when I am still doing what I can with what I have but could do so much more with a little help?
Ever wondered what it is like not to be bathed or showered for a week?  Or to lie in a wet bed for a day? 
Ever wonder what it is like not to have a single doctor in the country who has ever heard of your disease and that there is a cure but I would have to go to the USA to Maryland for 11 months … where would the money come from?  The doctor is prepared to treat me for nothing.   But it is too late now because I cannot even get to the hospital without an ambulance, never mind thinking of going for a cure in another far off land.

I have so many wonderful ideas to change our world but alone, I can do nothing.   I really want to get these innocent prisoners out of jail – I really want a place where battered women can flee to – I really want to have a plan in place for when our rivers run with blood.  I really want to be able to provide food to the starving and that is already started in a small way and we eat from our garden.  But I can teach – I can show people how to improve their lives – I can mentor – I am a psychologist – I know the constitutional law – I can write, edit and proofread…And then publish for other people, not only for myself.  I can motivate, encourage and connect dots for people.   All my flaws and scars are what makes me a uniquely creative and beautiful human being.    I am afraid of nothing except suffering to breathe and to die that way.
I am a great supporter of paying it forward with random acts of kindness – and I am richly rewarded by our Maker who gives me the strength to continue to do His work.  But now He needs YOU, His angels to help this one.  

Thursday, January 9, 2020

The problem of Forgiveness


Forgiveness is not something that happens as a single event with an honest apology or acknowledgement of the wrongdoing. Forgiveness is an on-going process, because every time you think of that person, you have to forgive again, every time music or a smell or sound reminds you ... you have to forgive again. Without the culprit acknowledging the wrong-doing, he continues to see you as a worthless person. He needs to acknowledge the part he played in the hurt he created. By doing that, he is then able to give the victim back his or her self-worth as part of the human race. 
And only then can the forgiving begin. Perhaps the "forgive 7 x 70" from the good book talks about just this ... that forgiveness for the same hurt takes 490 times before it comes to an end. I don't know if that made sense to you, but it has just made perfect sense to me!! I get so pissed off when I am told to forgive and forget. I would be most stupid to forgive and forget so that I can put myself in the same situation again. For me ... it is a sincere apology first and then the process of forgiveness can begin.