DESPITE being diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and contracting a life-threatening disease during her first semester, Natalie Forbes, from Amsterdamhoek, continued to work hard and was nominated for the Honour Student of the Year Award at the University of Cincinnati in the USA.
Before Forbes (30) moved to Ohio in July 2018, she was a professional chef and worked in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, for a few years.
Forbes, who has family in Cincinnati, Ohio, then decided to change career paths and applied to study at the University of Cincinnati.
Despite her dedication to her studies, learning did not come easily to her, as she was diagnosed with ADD as a child.
Forbes, who attended Woodridge College in Grades 8 and 9, and then completed the rest of her high school education at Collegiate High School, said trying to learn with ADD had always been a challenge.
“While I was completing my primary and high school education in South Africa, listening to the teacher in class was difficult with a thousand other thoughts running through my mind,” said Forbes.
“When I was at home trying to do my homework, there were so many distractions that made it difficult to focus. It was hard to stay motivated to do my schoolwork with these challenges.”
With hard work and the determination to persevere, Forbes went on to obtain her associates degree in information technology at the University of Cincinnati and is now working towards obtaining her bachelor’s degree in software development and a minor in computer science.
The journey to accomplishing her goals was, however, not easy at all.
In November 2018, at the end of Forbes’ first semester of studies, she contracted necrotising fasciitis, a life-threatening bacterial infection that destroys tissue under the skin.
Forbes said, before she was diagnosed, she was in a lot of pain and decided to visit her general practitioner, but was misdiagnosed and therefore given the incorrect treatment.
A few days later, the pain became extremely unbearable and she decided to go to the hospital where she had to undergo emergency exploratory surgery.
“After my emergency exploratory surgery, the doctors were amazed that I had survived,” she said.
Forbes had a total of six operations during her first and second semesters.
Throughout her second semester there were times when she was unable to walk or stand and, for six weeks, she could only lie on her left side due to surgical sites on her front, right side and back.
In her third semester, she was still receiving treatment.
Fortunately, she was able to recover from the bacteria.
However, there were some ramifications from the disease, which will be permanent. Despite the various challenges she faced with her health, Forbes who was fortunate enough to take the online option for all her classes, which ensured that she was always up-to-date with her schoolwork.
“I would inform my professors of my surgery dates and request to get my assignments early so that I could complete them before each surgery, to ensure I was never late handing in an assignment. I am so pleased that I was able to maintain my 4.0 GPA throughout this experience,” she said.
Her hard work and dedication paid off and, in March, Forbes was nominated for Honour Student of the Year, which is an award granted to the top student of each department.
She was able to make it to the final round, but was placed as runner-up and was granted two scholarships by the University of Cincinnati.
“When I received the confirmation about being nominated, I was absolutely thrilled, but still in disbelief. I had to reread everything a few times over to confirm that I was not misunderstanding what I was reading and that I had received both scholarships,” said Forbes.
“I then just sat on the couch for a moment giving thanks to God while my eyes teared up.”
Despite not winning the Honour Student of the Year Award, Forbes said it was such a privilege to be chosen as the top student of the maths, physics and computer science department.
