Obrigado, thank-you, dankie and danke!

Being diagnosed with an untreatable form of Leukemia, feels like a death sentence. I don't say that lightly. I saw a very brief and dark future for me. The desperation I felt, was overwhelming and consuming. I saw no way out.

Over the last year I have constantly begged God for strength and for a miracle. He has answered my prayers by filling my life with true and honest Friends. These angels have helped me to get over the hurdles, picked me up when I fell down, and held my hand when it sometimes got too much.

When we first received the costing sheet for the search for a local and international donor, Jose and I sat with a calculator and added up the figures over and over.  It costs R 18,700.00 to test ONE local donor up to the point of a donor preliminary assessment. When we initiated the local and international searches, there were 82 Class 1 matches in South Africa and just over 3ooo international Class 1 matches.

Within the international donors, 22 where matches at a higher resolution.  That means that out of the 14 250 000 registered international donors, only 22 could be tested further. That’s only

0.000, 0154, 3%!

Of those 22, we were told that there might be 1 that could be a fully matched donor. Therefore a probability of 0.000, 000, 07% of finding a match. We decided to rather focus our time and effort on testing the 22 international donors, since those had already been tissue typed to a higher level.

Considering it takes about 12 weeks to test a donor to Class 2 high resolution, there was no way we could test the local donors, since I would run out of time, and we couldn’t financially contemplate such an endeavour.

By the Grace of God, my donor was found within the first batch of 3 international donors tested. It took just over 4 months to carry out all the tests. Those were very anxious months as you can well imagine!

I have spent the last year fighting with my medical aid, making endless calls, and pursuing a case against Bonitas through the Council for Medical Schemes. Every door has been not only closed, but locked shut! I have 2 arch lever files full of paperwork documenting my fight. I can honestly say that I have pursued every avenue, and it has left me exhausted. I have felt the utter desperation of counting the months as time passed, feeling so ill that some days, I felt like just quitting and admitting defeat. But no, I cannot quit, because I have so much to live for. And ultimately, only God can decide what the future holds.

On Monday, I will start my journey to recovery. It’s going to be rough, but I’m committed to seeing this through. On Wednesday I signed the Transplant Contract, which spelled out in detail that I will be undergoing a lethal chemotherapy regimen and all the dangers and possible outcomes of this transplant. BUT, it also states that it CAN work. I am focusing on that. If God built everything that is from a void, then certainly, if it is His will and through His grace, I see many sunshine days in my future. And after the rain, there is always a rainbow. It is important to not lose sight of that.

I want to thank everyone who has supported my family and I. There are so many people who have helped us in so many ways. To Victor, who organised the Leukemia Golf Day, to all the sponsors and those who supported the day, thank you. I owe you my life. I can never repay that debt, but I will try to pay it forward, by starting a support group for Leukemia sufferers.

I also want to say that without all the prayers and love that I have received, this journey would have been too much for me alone. Your support, means that I can look forward to a long life, and I will be able to fulfil the promise I made to God, that if he blessed me with a child, I would bring her up to love and honour Him.

Thank you.