The last meal of Anna Hill
'I want to go back to my old job, but I can’t even swallow my own saliva'
Anna Hill remembers her last meal.
It was salmon benedict at a St Clair cafe, back in September 2021.
She hasn’t eaten a proper meal since, and can barely drink water.
“If I could have anything I would have a cup of coffee.”
When Hill was pregnant with her youngest, she started experienced chest pains whenever she ate or drank anything,
“It’s just horrendously painful when I was eating.”
Concerned over her health, Hill went to her doctor who attributed the growing discomfort to her pregnancy.
But it got worse, much worse.
Fifteen minutes after giving birth to her youngest, she deteriorated and could no longer swallow and was ‘nil by mouth’.
With food and drink struggling to go down, she would often vomit, requiring an ever-present bucket to be by her side.
“I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t work,” the former hospital nurse said.
“I want to go back to my old job, but I can’t even swallow my own saliva.”
The 38-year-old mother-of-four has no energy to take her youngest child to the park, for a walk, or even hold her for any extended period.
Hill has to constantly pound her chest to alleviate the pain.
“I have no quality of life, this has ruined my life.”
After the birth of her daughter 19 months ago, the pain persisted, but was compounded by her inability to sleep.
Constantly dehydrated and unable to breastfeed her baby daughter, she again sought a diagnosis from her doctor, who she had visited dozens of times over the issue.
Visits to specialists confirmed she had a rare disease, with the majority of muscles in her oesophagus, which connects the throat to the stomach, effectively dead.
While Hill no longer felt hungry, she often felt thirsty, but the pain of trying to drink made that a difficult task as “my throat just shuts”.
While her specialists were talking about the possibility of surgery, they had parked that plan in favour of a temporary feeding tube, which she would receive next week.
But Hill wanted an operation to restore her oesophagus, and had started to look overseas for options.
“I can’t afford to wait.”
She found a surgeon in Delhi, India who could treat her by making a new oesophagus out of her stomach, followed by three weeks’ recuperation.
Unable to get a loan because she was unemployed, a friend of Hill’s created a Givealittle page, which had raised just under $4000 of the $25,000 goal.
“I’ve lost everything. Literally I’ve lost everything. All my savings has been spent on medications and doctor’s visits.
“I’ve lost my career . . . I’ve lost everything.”
Her three older children, who lost their father in a motor vehicle crash on Christmas Day in 2021, were worried they were about to lose their mother.
“It has been a real s*** time.”
“Imagine not getting up in the morning and not having a sip of coffee or tea, or anything, that is like me everyday.”
“I’ve spent two Christmases unable to eat or drink, and I am just over it.”
Unable to eat or drink, she had lost some 38 kilograms, and was now down to just over 50kgs, with little energy left for basic tasks.
“I just sit here and dribble into a towel, or a bucket,” Hill says as she pounds her chest.
Good luck Anna, and I’ll keep you posted on how she gets on.
I loved that the godfather of New Zealand lo-fi indie music, the talented Chris Knox, has had one of his songs feature in a major ad campaign for Heinz tomato ketchup in the United Kingdom:
The track is now his second most popular song on Spotify, but well behind the Kiwi classic, Not Given Lightly.
It’s Love is off his album Beat, which was released back in 2000.
Knox, the pioneer of early Dunedin-bands The Enemy and Toy Love, suffered a stroke in 2009.
If you want to know more about Knox, this article is a fascinating read.
If you know what this is, please reply in the comments.
And it is just a couple more sleeps until the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™ begins in Ōtepoti Dunedin, with that first match between Switzerland and the Philippines.
I’ve heard there could be a crowd of around 10,000. While that sounds great, half of those were free tickets courtesy of a sponsor. I just hope the locals get behind the games.
Interestingly, I booked tickets late last year to sit in the Zoo area, basically to the right of the goal. But it seems that those three match tickets for my family of four have now been upgraded to the main stand. Result!
Here is one of the games superstars, Alisha Lehmann, of Switzerland, wearing some sort of head/neck warmer. Got to get one of these!
From tomorrow we will start to see a street mural emerge outside the Municipal Chambers, as part of the tournament.
A second mural will be painted on Anzac Ave on Sunday 30 July by street artist Graeme Hoete.
Next door, at St Paul’s Cathedral, there will be special projection mapping project on the days the FIFA Fan Festival™ is open.
Tomorrow night (Thursday) is the first night of the FIFA Fan Festival™ and you’re going to want to get there early to secure your spot.
If you want to catch a live screening of the Football Ferns first match against Norway (why does this always make me thing of the race for the South Pole), then head to the Town Hall tomorrow night (Thursday). Kiwi songstress Bic Runga will perform at 5pm.
Meanwhile, I was contacted by a person who was visiting Dunedin last week and wanted recommendations. So this is what I gave them:
Cafes: Ebb-Cafe, Morning Magpie and Side-On
Drinks: Woof! Albar, Steamer Basin
Food: Moiety (for fancy kai), otherwise a burger from Good Good.
What to do: Hit the museums but don’t forget The Museum of Natural Mystery, and the street art trail is free and interesting. Baldwin St is always great for pictures. A trip down Castle St North is always entertaining.
Walks: Tunnel Beach, Lover’s Leap.
If you are looking for some non-football events in the city this week, you could check out the latest Dunedin Dream Brokerage project, which involved Otago University Caroline Plummer, Daisy Sanders. That project is called A Resting Mess, and will open from Thursday,with an opening event on Saturday at 2pm.
This is the pitch:
Daisy uses her installation of recyclable items, dance events and performances to pose questions. “How do we rest and take care of one another amidst the mess we are making of our world’’.
And ICYMI, a couple of my stories over the last week include:
Restaurant owner facing a dozen charges of underpaying migrant staff
What not to bring to the FIFA World Cup
I’ve got an interesting story coming this weekend, and last week I took some photos of Dudley Benson for this story.
For all cinema lovers, this looks great:
And go the Otago Nuggets!
The barrel on top of the Speight's Brewery chimney 🍻
That one's easy, but took me until it was repainted a few years ago to notice that the barrel was up there. Definitely pays to look up near Rattray St