MamaMagic Milestones Issue 13 2017

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Mother’s

Blogging Dream… With a husband on dialysis, and two young children to look after, 31-year old Yashmitha Padayachee explains how her unique experiences as a mom prompted her to start blogging. It’s 9:30 pm on a Tuesday night. The kids are sound asleep, the lunch bags have been packed, I’ve tidied the house and done a load of washing. It’s finally ME TIME… I’ll be asleep in 5…4…3…2…zzz. This is, I’m sure, a similiar routine for many moms – whether you work fulltime like me, part-time or if you’re at home with the kids all day. So how do WE, average modern day moms, stay sane amongst the constant hustle and bustle? My answer redefines not only me time, but the concept of me too. We have all lost little parts of who we were before kids and family came along, and swopped them for who we are, as parents and spouses. I know none of us would change it for anything, so we need to embrace it, own it, and in my opinion, blog about it! Let me start at the very beginning. I’m Yashmitha Padayachee, 31-year-old wife to Praven and mother to Kivesh and Thavina. I have a BSc degree and work as a laboratory technician. I don’t particularly like walks on the beach or candlelit dinners. I do love my family very much and could talk about them non-stop. A few short years ago, I found myself struggling to find a purpose beyond

that of mother and wife (I firmly believe we all need that other purpose in our lives, and it doesn’t make us bad mothers). Praven was diagnosed with end stage kidney failure in 2013. At the time Kivesh was just three years old and I was five months pregnant with Thavina. Praven began dialysis immediately and it had a ripple effect across our entire lives. The strain on us and (this is the first time I’m saying it) the strain on me, was enormous. To continue with everything, I would normally do while being pregnant would have been a task on its own. Added to the stress of seeing to a specialised diet, dealing with an understandably moody Praven, sacrificing weekend after weekend of family time for medical treatment, dealing with medical aid and insurance call centre agents – it was debilitating to say the least. So many issues came at us one after the other. Praven was re-admitted to hospital in November, Kivesh also needing medical attention in January 2014 and Thavina being born via emergency C-section (and the emotions and feelings that surrounded her birth). Throughout this time, I longed for an outlet. Support groups exist for patients

going through illnesses, but how many exist for the people supporting the patients? I thought it would be a great idea to blog about our journey one day and how we began to cope with each new curveball thrown at our family. But that day never came. It was a luxury I couldn’t afford – both financially and in time. I don’t want to take anything away from the family support that was given to us and my friends at work who were constantly there to dry my tears, but I still felt alone in it all. Praven was on dialysis for a total of 15 months.

Throughout this time, I longed for an outlet. Support groups exist for patients going through illnesses, but how many exist for the people supporting the patients? As soon as Thavina was six months old, we desperately went through the motions of finding out whether I could donate one of my kidneys to him. The tests involved were emotional and many quite painful, but on 11 December 2014 – which just happened to have been our 8th anniversary – we received the incredible news that








































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