Malané BosmanONE can never give up hope, not even if you have the death sentence of acute leukemia hanging over you.
Cheree Ackermann (40), Paarl mother of two, managed to turn away from death’s door with a bone marrow transplant.
There was no money to fund the search for a donor, but after invasive chemotherapy, Cheree was in remission long enough for her own stem cells to be harvested, filtered and infused.
That was four months ago, and Cheree, her husband Niël and their children Nieche (15) and Deann (12), are not looking back.
The joyful woman, for 16 years a teacher at Courtrai Primary School, left the profession four years ago when a non-malignant brain tumor was diagnosed.
“I fainted in class and three weeks later on the netball court. It caused severe depression and I could not continue teaching,” Cheree said.
She started a business, Flowers@Home, and enjoyed the new challenge until January last year, when she started feeling very tired.
“I was bruising, my skin itched and I felt as if was going to suffer a heart attack every day.”
During that time Cheree decided that, for the first time in her life, she wanted to donate blood. But she was turned away. She was too anaemic.
During Easter the family took their caravan to the West Coast. She woke up on her son’s birthday too tired to get up. Her body was covered in bruises.
“I made an appointment to see a specialist. I thought I was going to hear I was overweight and would be put on a diet.
“I wish. On Thursday 20 April a full blood count was done, and the next day I was told that I suffered from acute myeloid leukemia.”
On the Monday Cheree was admitted to Constantiaberg Clinic.
“I was in denial. It had to be a mistake. I thought: I’m going home. I will not have chemo. I nursed my sister for four months through chemotherapy for breast cancer and she died. Chemo does not help.”
That night she had to decide as she needed to start chemotheraphy immediately. She had six weeks to live.
“I chose chemo and was moved to an isolation ward. It was my daughter’s birthday.”
Cheree was to wear an intravenous line between the aorta in her neck to her breast for the next eight months.
She would suffer five blood tests a week, four traumatic bone marrow appraisals with a thick needle being inserted from her breastbone to her spine, many, many lumbar punctures, three sessions of invasive chemotherapy.
During the first session Cheree was so sick that she lost 20kg in three weeks. The skin peeled from her fingers. She hardly slept.
She suffered attacks of rigour, shivering from cold one moment and burning up the next. She could not eat. She had diarrhoea and vomited constantly.
A feeding tube was implanted to save her life - and Cheree became the first patient ever to vomit out the tube.
“It was my 40th birthday. In isolation.
Only one balloon with Happy Birthday was allowed. No people and no flowers.
“That’s when I said to myself: if there is a God, then He must please do something today. Life is supposed to start at 40, and here mine was ending.”
But first there was more bad news. Cheree needed a splinectomy and woke up in a high care unit.
Life was hanging on a thread.
But two weeks later she called the nurse to her bedside and drank five litres of apple juice. The next day she started eating.
In six months, Cheree spent a total of eight days at home. She is still not allowed to eat any raw foods, such as her favourites - biltong, cheese, yoghurt.
She will never to able to work with flowers again, because her resistance to infection is so low.
For the next months Cheree cannot leave her home, go shopping or even to church, without a mask to prevent infection.
Her family has undergone many changes and has needed councelling.
“It was not easy for them to see me so helpless, white as a sheet, completely hairless. Without strength to do anything for them, or myself.
“And all those weeks in isolation, talking through a glass panel, not able to just hold one another.
“I have an amazing husband. Only now do I know what through sickness and health means.
“Niël has had to sell our bakkie and the caravan. He had to close my business, look after the children and drive to Constantia every day.
“Members of the community, people who I did not know, sent text messages. They were praying for me.
“I was so sick that hospital staff had to read it to me. I could not even reply. They will never know what the payers and the words I’m thinking of you, meant to me.”
After the third chemotheraphy session in June, Cheree was in remission and on 19 September last year her own stem cells could be harvested for an infusion.
Four weeks later she walked out of the hospital, praying that there would not be a relapse.
The procedure cannot be repeated. Should she relapse, Cheree will need a donor. And then she will need up to a R1 million to cover the costs.
The Ackermanns have now started a fund, the Cheree Ackermann Bone Marrow Trust, a savings account (number 919 379 6585) at Absa, Paarl.
Enquiries can be made to auditor Bosmann Slabber at 082-897-5757.
If Cheree remains healthy, she plans to open the trust to aid members of the local community and then others in need in South Africa.
She is already offering free services as motivational speaker.
“One can never give up hope. We take it day by day, thanking God for every day’s grace.”
