Lucky to be alive

2003-07-31 09:37

Antoinette Pienaar

Johannesburg - She lost 20kg, her toes were amputated and she had to learn from scratch how to walk and eat.

Those were just some of the traumatic experiences the 18-year-old schoolgirl from Silverton went through after catching the same deadly strain of meningitis which broke out at Potchefstroom university recently. She contracted the disease seven months ago.

Danell Esterhuizen should have been in matric this year. Instead, she spent the first few months of the year in intensive care at Wilger's Hospital in Pretoria.

"I prepared myself for the worst. They even sent counsellors to me, who told me to pray for her," her mother Estelle said on Wednesday.

Danell caught an ear infection while camping with relatives near Rustenburg. New Year's Eve she had a headache and started vomiting.

"The next morning there was a rash on my feet. I was feverish and felt lame in my hands and feet."

On the same day a Rustenberg hospital trasferred her to Wilgers, where she was diagnosed with meningitis.

Danell's lungs collapsed and for more than two months she was attached to a ventilator. She developed blood clots in her brain and her toes later turned black as the tissue died. Doctors amputated three toes and scraped off dead tissue, leaving scars all over her body.

Danell remembers little of this. Her mother said she cried often and doctors gave her tranquillisers so she wouldn't be too traumatised.

When she was discharged on March 11 she weighed 38kg and couldn't eat, walk or go to the toilet unaided. Shortly afterwards her hair fell out.

Her hair has grown back since, but she will only return to school next year because she still struggles with short-term memory.

Mrs Esterhuizen, who was told her daughter would be brain-damaged, said it was a small price to pay. "It breaks my heart to hear about the latest incidents when the children weren't helped in time."

- Beeld