News: Beating the odds to tackle Ironman:
Life-threatening allergy spurs her on for Ironman
WHEN Elzabe Boshoff told her doctor it was her dream to complete an Ironman, she expected a strict warning, an incredulous laugh – and a blunt refusal.
After all, she did have a medical file that resembled an encyclopaedia and a number of rare conditions that had almost killed her in the past decade.
But instead her doctor, pulmonologist Dave Stickells, based at St George’s Hospital, said: “I think it will be a phenomenally inspiring thing to do. It will show people that nothing is impossible.” His only caution was that she should take it slowly and train over three years for the race. Now Boshoff is aiming to cross the finish line at the Ironman 2018 challenge.
“That finish line will be lined with tissues,” she laughed. “I will cry all the way.”
Boshoff, 48, suffers from a potentially fatal allergy to dairy products and a vocal cord dysfunction that causes them to contract and block off her airway.
Boshoff told her remarkable story to Weekend Post on Thursday, a day after Anaphylaxis Awareness Day.
Boshoff who calls anaphylaxis the “hidden death”, said the condition was “like playing Russian Roulette with food”. While doctors do not know for certain what has triggered her anaphylaxis, they believe it may be due to a high dairy diet she was forced to consume after being scalded by hot water.
“In 1999 I fell into a bath filled with boiling water. We just had a new geyser installed and the contractors set it on the highest setting. We had a sunken bath and when I leaned over to close a tap, I fell in. All my nerve-endings contracted in shock and I battled to get out of the water. I suffered second and third degree burns on 53% of my body.
“I will never forget the horror when I took the phone to phone my husband and I felt my fingernails pop off one by one.” Boshoff got into a cold shower and pulled her clothes and jewellery off her body. “My daughter, Nadine, who was on
ly 11 then, pressed the panic button. My other baby was five months old and she just held her.”
Boshoff said she would forever be grateful to Atlas Security’s Monty Montgomery for his quick response on that day.
“He saved my life. The ambulance didn’t even have the correct burns dressing. He knew exactly what to do.
“I was hospitalised in the isolation/burns unit at Greenacres Hospital for three weeks.
“It took me a year to recover from the burns. At the time my plastic surgeon advised me to follow a high protein diet, with plenty of nuts, meat and dairy to help my skin recover.
“For a while I was fine. I had always been asthmatic. While I was on this diet I gained about 11 kilogram.
“I was diagnosed as a broad spectrum allergic. It got so bad that if a cleaner was cleaning with a certain type of cleaner in the morning, I would be fine. If she used the same cleaner to clean again in the afternoon I would have a severe allergic reaction. Eventually doctors suggested that I start by cutting out dairy. My allergies and asthma were so bad at the time that I even needed a mobile nebuliser in my car. I was a prisoner in my own house for 18 months.”
Boshoff said one night she and her husband asked for dairy-free cake while dining out at a restaurant.
“The woman assured us that her pecan-nut pie was completely dairy-free. As soon as I took a bite my lips started swelling. I couldn’t breathe. It was the turning point for me.
“My allergy to dairy is so severe that once, when my medication was switched to a generic one which contained trace amounts of dairy, my own pills almost killed me.” Under the care of Stickells, Boshoff was diagnosed with vocal cord dysfunction. “When I have an allergic reaction my vocal cords close up my airways and I can’t breathe. It is only when I lose consciousness that my vocal cords open up again.”
Boshoff said when she cut all dairy from her diet, her lung capacity increased from 23% to 53% in the first three months, to 86% after six months. “Two months later I was declared fit to scuba dive.”
Boshoff is the manager of Ocean Divers International and the author of the book The heart of an Ironman.
She now feels healthier than ever before.
“I am staying fit and eating properly. This is what is keeping me alive. I just keep on repeating to myself: I am strong. I am healthy. I am doing this.”