Family destroyed by killer asthma
Yesterday, World Asthma Day was celebrated worldwide. In the small village of Lomanyaneng in Mahikeng, Tefo Muse’s wife and two sons died due to asthma. looks at how Muse has lived with a family of acute asthma sufferers over the years, the daily challeng
IF THERE’S anyone who knows the devastating effects of asthma, it’s Tefo Muse.
Over the years, this high school maths teacher watched helplessly as asthma claimed the lives of his family members.
It started with his young wife, who succumbed to an asthma attack at 29, leaving Muse to raise their sons, the youngest of whom was only two years old at the time.
Four years later, in 1996, an asthma attack claimed his second-born son Hlekiso, who was 13 at the time.
Over the years, all went relatively well except for the odd manageable attack, giving Muse hope that his two remaining sons, who also suffered from a severe form of asthma, had learnt how to manage the condition.
However, tragedy struck again when Muse’s last-born son, Takatso, died last year from an asthma attack in Bloemfontein, where he was studying and working.
Now Muse is left with only his first-born, Saniki, who is also asthmatic. All that he hopes for is that Saniki at least survives.
While Muse’s wife Mimi came from a family with a history of the condition, she was not born with asthma. It was only after she gave birth to their first son that she developed it, he says.
According to Muse, the asthma Mimi developed was so severe that despite all the medication, including a nebuliser and sprays, there was not much they could do to manage it.
For Muse, nothing is as traumatic as having loved ones who suffer from acute asthma as you are constantly anxious, wondering if they are okay.
The day he lost his wife, they were at a party having fun. Mimi, he recalls, was very happy and excited, she was laughing.
After few minutes, however, she went outside, saying she was not feeling well.
At that moment they realised she was having an attack. She was rushed to hospital, however, she did not make it.
“There was no warning, nothing,” Muse says.
With an entire family suffering from acute asthma, some well people took pity on the family and would give Muse “remedies” they said would help.
Among them was to take a crab, boil it, then give the water to the children.
Other people told him to pour water in dagga, boil it, then give them the water.
Still others told him to find a pig that had just given birth, milk it and give the milk to the children to drink.
However, none of the remedies helped and the asthma attacks were so constant that staff at the nearby Mafikeng Provincial Hospital got to know Muse and his family well.
He would burst through the doors, carrying one of the children limp from an asthmatic attack, and no one would ask him for a file or to wait for a doctor.
He would be taken to a room and nurses and doctors would start working on the child.
After years of surviving attacks, Hlekiso’s last attack was so severe that he did not survive it.
It was during Easter of 1996, and Muse had bought a sheep and was supposed to slaughter it for the holidays. But he was not feeling well and decided not to slaughter it that day.
Hlekiso, however, could not wait any longer, and he and his friends slaughtered it.
They even cooked the liver and ate it.
Hlekiso, Muse recalls, was so excited for the whole day, dancing, jumping and singing, telling his father about what they did.
“I told him to calm down, as too much excitement was not good for him and might lead to an attack.”
Muse was right, as in the morning he heard familiar calls of “Daddy, daddy, I’m not okay.”
Hlekiso was bundled into a car and rushed to hospital. They were so fast and frantic that they even hit a cow on the way to hospital.
They were not injured and managed to get Hlekiso to the hospital, but like his mother, he did not make it.
The trauma of losing his wife and son to asthma made Muse want to refuse when his last born, Takatso, wanted to go and study in Bloemfontein in the Free State. He had become too protective of his two remaining sons as he did not want to lose them.
While there, Takatso would get attacks, but not tell his father, as he was trying to protect him because he knew he was still trying to deal with the deaths of his wife and son from asthma.
Last year in April, however, Muse got the dreaded call.
Takatso had an attack around 6pm, and not even the nebuliser or the spray could open his airways.
He was rushed to hospital but died about two hours later. He was 27 years old.
Muse says after everything he has gone through, the only thing that makes him wake up and face the world is prayer.
“All I can say to people going through the same thing is listen, pray and have hope. The hope I have now is that my first-born, Saniki, will survive. All the others died very young, but he is already approaching his forties, so I have hope. I am always so worried about him that I can’t even sleep…”
Muse says he has never had a support group where he could speak to people going through the same thing, but that it was something he would have appreciated over the years.