A listicle of Medical Screw ups and a House Invasion

Tragedies Hit Most Families But I Think We Have Had More Than Our Fair Share

Every one of us had our “turn”, and that just doesn’t seem fair

Not one, but four of the fuckers. Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash

Of course we all know that life isn’t fair. And it’s probably ‘fair’ to say that it’s a cliche. But try reading this story and see if you agree that life has pushed the limits with my family.

I’ll present the stories in chronological order, starting with the oldest. Which means I get to go first. What do you mean that’s not fair? We have been over this, please try to keep up.

Besides, I’m writing this, so who can argue?

1. Yours Truly:

Some years back, during a routine annual eye check-up with my ophthalmologist, he discovered that I had a detached retina. And he wanted to know what trauma had caused it. You know, because it’s the type of thing that usually involves occupations like boxing, or indeed any other blunt force trauma to the eye. I could not recollect anything. A medical puzzle, right there. Anyway, he told me that I needed an emergency operation.

So the next day we were off to Cape Town for my op. The surgeon explained that to carry out the procedure, he would have to use gas or silicone oil in the eye, to stabilise it, or something. He had decided on the latter because the gas might explode in my eye as we drove north to home, which was considerably higher than sea level.

What he did not tell me is that it was very difficult to remove all the oil post-op. In short, he didn’t, and I developed Glaucoma. An irreversible eye disease that causes blindness.

The aftermath is contained in this, the full story:

[embed]My Struggles With Glaucoma A Sad Tale Of Medical Mishapsmedium.com

2. My Better-Half:

My wife, Vonnie, was attacked one night, just after she had dropped our youngest son off at his girlfriend’s place. I was living and working in Zambia. So she was alone.

Four guys followed her into the garage, stuck a gun in her face and made her take them inside. Our three dogs were in the backyard going bananas. They tied her up and ransacked the house. Somehow, she got herself free, ran into the bedroom, slammed the safety door closed, and hit the alarm. They panicked and hastily fled. In my car. Which they crashed into the gate on their way out.

Here is a link to the full story, written by Vonnie herself:

[embed]My Wife’s Night Of Terror A very personal storymedium.com

3. My Eldest Son:

Gareth, who was in high school at this time, was getting out of the bath and slipped and banged his eye (yup, eyes again, and again later). We rushed him to hospital and waited about an hour for our GP to arrive (she will also feature in the next incident).

She examined him and essentially told us he should be fine, and gave us some pain killers. He was not fine. After two days of pain and suffering, Vonnie took him to the hospital at Vaal Reefs Gold Mine, where she worked as the Administrator. The resident Opthalmologist took one look and declared “This young man will need an operation as soon as possible or he will lose that eye”.

So now we are racing off to Pretoria for his op. We had to stay with the parents of an ex-girlfriend of his, as we were unable to book anywhere at such short notice.

The op was a success, and, thankfully, he did not suffer any major problems thereafter.

4. My Daughter:

Candice was riding her bicycle home after visiting a friend. Somehow, she fell off and banged her head on the road. She was, and still is, a tough little lady and walked home, pushing her bike. But we notice that she’s kind of groggy, and not really with it. So we were thinking concussion. So, off we go to our doctor. (Yes, the one mentioned earlier). She examines her, gives her some pain pills, and tells us she should be OK, but to bring her back if she started vomiting.

Big surprise, during the night she was throwing up all over the place. So we were once more racing to the hospital. After an X-Ray we were told that she had a skull fracture, causing a bubble near her brain, and should avoid any kind of ‘rough’ physical contact for a year.

She was a damn good field hockey player and, in two weeks time was due to participate in the school’s first team hockey trials. Sadly this was the end of her hockey career.

5. My Youngest Son:

Warren, also attending high school at the time, went to a braai (BBQ, if you will) at a friend’s house. Latish that night, he decided it was time to go home. There was an altercation over the fact that his mate did not want to return the couple of beers that Warren still had left over.

So this ‘mate’ called on another guy, a registered cage fighter, who proceed to beat the shit out of my son, including kneeing him in the eye. It seems that the McCumskey men have a curse on our eyes.

They left him lying by the pool for about four hours until a girl stumbled upon him lying unconscious. Thankfully, a couple of his friends rushed him to hospital.

We only heard about it the next morning and, once again, rushed to see another one of our children in the hospital. We then discovered that our medical aid company would not approve any help for him until I contacted them.

That meant that he had been unconscious or lying in hospital, untreated, for about eight hours.

Warren loved cricket, and, before this incident, he used to open the batting for his school’s first cricket team. Having now permanently lost 80% of his vision in the right eye, his cricket career was over.

If you managed to read this tale of what life can throw at us, I thank you. If you didn’t, I understand.