Get well soon, Madiba!

 

Only one story of interest today!

Nelson Mandela, Madiba, the 92-year-old hero of our nation is not well.

It's a breaking news item that has captured the globe, has journalists and photographers camped outside Milpark Hospital and reporters calling all their contacts for any and every scrap of information they can get.

We early shifters arrived at the office at dawn this morning to relieve our night shift counterparts, allowing them to go home and shower and get some sleep.

By late morning the newsroom was buzzing. Everyone was keen to be part of the story as we waited and waited and waited for some kind of official comment.

Slowly we pieced together bits - Madiba had been on holiday in the Cape when he developed a cough he couldn't shake. It's probably not terribly serious, because he did have TB in prison. But he went for some tests and it was decided that he should be flown home to rest under the watchful eye of his personal physician at Milpark.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation has said he is undergoing some routine tests. Everybody knows he is old and frail. When I last saw him at his great granddaughter's funeral at the start of the World Cup his face was alive with that brilliant beam we all know and love so much. But his body was so weak I wanted to cry! He had to be transported from his car into the hall by golf cart as he was no longer able to walk with any ease.

As he lies in his bed, the hospital is filling up with visitors of all kinds and a massive media contingent remains firmly entrenched outside. Never mind the rain.

I pray for the best. We heard rumours of a pending press statement announcing that he is out of the woods. I hope this is true. The alternative involves a pending story that every media empire is prepared for, but one I have always dreaded.

Long live Madiba!