By Joe-Chintha Garises
KEETMANSHOOP, 28 April – Former Suiderlig High School learner, Veruska Mahali (18), remains hopeful after she lost her sight in 2020.
Her headaches started around mid-October 2020 while she was busy with her Grade 10 external examination.
“Even when I was writing my Afrikaans exam, the words were jumping up and down. I was struggling and wrote my exam for four hours when I was just supposed to write for two hours,” she said.
Veruska is the third of six children in her family. When she started having the headaches, she was treated only for migraines by various doctors in Keetmanshoop and Windhoek.
She stopped her daily activities as her eyesight became worse by the day. Later she was diagnosed with meningitis, a medical condition that is an inflammation (swelling) of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord.
Her parents were told Veruska only had a few days left to live, so she should just go home and spend her last days with her family. This happened in February 2021.
In the same year, she was taken to private doctors by her older sister where she was told that the nerves in her eyes were damaged because of what happened in her brain, but was not told what really happened in her brain that caused the nerve damage.
In December she went back to Windhoek again for another brain scan: “Later on the doctors told me that they have the brain scan but can’t interpret what’s on the scan sheet cause the one person that knew better was not there”. Veruska finished her treatment but still no help.
She then decided to give her life over to Jesus as there was nothing that she could do. She loved reading but due to her migraines, she stopped. And couldn’t follow her dream of becoming a doctor one day.
Her parents don’t want to send her off to a disabled person’s school knowing she has special needs, and not everyone has the patience to look after her. So they prefer her to be in Keetmanshoop with them under their care.
Veruska said that her family first struggled with their new reality but now has accepted her fate. Her time is spent mostly at church and in her room talking with her only friend telephonically as she is in Swakopmund.
“I felt like my life was at a standstill after I went blind but I never had suicidal ideas,” she stressed.
Her friends distanced themselves from her and her sister is currently the only breadwinner at home as her father’s contract ended and was not renewed. Her mother is a housewife.
Veruska desires to still go back to school and finish her studies.
“I still believe that it doesn’t matter when but God is still going to restore my sight and he is busy doing it,” she said. – Namibia Daily News
