During their six months of hell, a mother from Nelson Mandela Bay wasn’t sure whether her son would survive his ordeal since she nearly lost him twice.
By “the grace of God,” the family recently received the best news: little Eddy Posthumus is healthy again and there is no sign of any cancer cells in his body. He is in full remission.
In March this year, PE Express reported about then six-year-old Eddy, a Grade 1 learner at Innes Primary School, who was diagnosed with cancer.
What started as an ear infection that turned into a supposed tonsil infection, later led to Eddy continuously vomiting, having body aches and pains, turning extremely pale and eventually fainting at the hospital.
The blood samples sent to Cape Town for testing confirmed the worst: Eddy had leukaemia.
He immediately started with chemotherapy and for half a year Eddy went into a downward spiral with his parents extremely anxious since the probability that their son would not make it was very high.
“His little body went through so much these past months. He was in the hospital receiving chemo from March until August. When I say that he was sick, I really mean that he was extremely sick and doctors said that we saved his life by rushing him to hospital when we did,” Eddy’s mother, Nicolene Cook, said.
“His dad and I didn’t know if he would pull through but we prayed and know that God gave the doctors the strength to help Eddy,” she said.
Cook mentioned that just when Eddy seemed a little better, there was a relapse when a sore developed on his lip that caused a massive infection.
“This infection nearly cost Eddy his life because his body was still very weak and he had no immune system. The doctors were very concerned and called his dad to the hospital because things weren’t looking good, but again the Lord gave the doctors the strength to know what to do,” Cook explained.
She said that he was rushed to Dora Nginza Hospital for emergency surgery on the lip. They removed half of his lip and replaced it with tissue from his cheek.
According to Cook, the doctors planned on performing a plastic surgery procedure on the lip but it had healed so well that it wasn’t necessary to operate.
She mentioned that they would still like to have a procedure done on his cheek where the tissue was removed in order for this tissue to not be so thin.
“If I say that things are going okay with Eddy I would be lying; he is doing amazing. He is back to his old self, my boy who is always laughing and babbling.
“He is 100% healthy,” she said.
“It wasn’t an easy journey. No parents deserve to go through all these bad things with their children. We just had faith and God carried us through every second of this experience and helped us fight for our child.
“I can’t really explain how I felt about Eddy’s leukaemia struggle because I still feel that fear and sadness every day just as I did when he was so sick. His dad and I just take it step by step,” Cook said.
“Eddy asks me many times why he had to become so sick and it breaks my heart all over again. I don’t always have an answer for him because as sore as his heart is about his illness, that is how much mine is breaking.
“However, Eddy is healthy. He is laughing again and can be a child again. I just want to thank everyone who was there for us and sent up a prayer. You all carried us through,” she said.
Eddy, who is now seven years old, does not receive treatment anymore but has to go for a checkup once a month. He will only be returning to school next year.
