Life hasn’t been easy for Xoliswa Ndlazulwana.
The 43-year-old from Site C has been living with a disability since her teen years. Like any other child, Ndlazulwana grew up bubbly and with dreams to achieve greater things in life.
However, at the age of 16 things turn for the worse and had to drop out of school. “It was on Sunday August in 1995 when I started having a headache and it became severe. My mother took me to the local doctor. The doctor examined me and referred me to Groote Schuur Hospital,” she recalls. On their arrival at the hospital, the doctors were already waiting for them.
Ndlazulwana said she went for an Xray which revealed “something like fluid” in her brain.
At the time she was beginning to feel weak and started to lose her consciousness. “The doctors did an operation in my head and implanted a shunt – a tube that is made to allow blood or other fluid to move from one part of the body to another – in my head via my neck through to the stomach to transport the fluid from my brain. After the operation I was in an intensive care unit (ICU) for three days. The sad part is after a few days in hospital my father died but my family didn’t tell me because they were concerned about my condition,” she explained.
According to her, following the operation her legs developed cramps and she became weak, forced to use a wheelchair.
Ndlazulwana said she remained in hospital for two weeks before the doctors discharged her.
Originally from Cofimvaba in the Eastern Cape, Ndlazulwana said the doctors discharged her on Thursday, a day before the family departed for her father’s burial in her home town.
“When I arrived at home (here in Khayelitsha) from the hospital. I saw cars and many people, in my mind I thought they were there to welcome me because I wasn’t aware of my father’s death. When I got inside the house the family informed me about my father’s death. To everyone’s surprise I didn’t cry at the time. We went to EC to bury my father. We buried him on Saturday and on Monday we came back. We arrived early in the early morning on Tuesday,” she recalled.
Ndlazulwana said when she woke up on Tuesday morning her bed was wet and her legs were numb. She said her mother took her to the local doctor. She was immediately transferred to Groote Schuur again. Following another examination, doctors discovered that she had spinal tuberculosis “I did three operations at the back. I took treatment for six months but while I was busy taking the treatment in the third month the Groote Schuur transferred me to Conradie Hospital where I did physiotherapy. At that time I was confined to a wheelchair. It was the worst moment of my life. I was so depressed. At that time I was wearing nappies. I even wanted to die,” she said, adding that she stayed at Conradie for three months.
Following her release from hospital, she stayed at home for three years doing nothing. Doctors had apparently told her she will never walk again.
But a year later, a miracle happened, this when her mother pricked her with a sharp object in the legs.
“That is when I had a hope that I could walk again. I kept on training walking by myself and my family members assisting me. I never went to the hospital again. From using a wheelchair I changed and used crutches,” she said.
Ndlazulwana said in 1999 she went back to school. “At that time I was able to walk with crutches but I was so slow. To my surprise, I dropped out at school in Grade 8 but when I got back the principal said I must go to Grade 9 because they knew my story. Even some of the teachers used to visit me while I was in hospital,” she said, adding that she did her matric in 2001.
Ndlazulwana said she personally trained to use one crutch and in 2003 she registered at University of Western Cape (UWC) for LLB. However, due to “massive workload” and loss of interest she dropped out in 2006. But that was not the end of her life, from 2010 she worked for the Cape Law Society till September 2014. A month later, she started at an oil company as a Supply and Trading Administrator.
Ndlazulwana urges other people, particularly women, not to lose hope or underestimate their power. She said the doctors had already given up and told her that she will never walk again but she kept on pushing.