Little battler Gabby is one in a million
It took months before her parents finally discovered what was wrong with their 4-year-old daughter Gabrielle. But after finding out her young brother was a donor match, there was never any question that he would try to help her. Charles Anderson reports.
Gabby Stephens steps up to the bathroom sink and reaches past her family’s toothbrushes to a white plastic case that rests on the cabinet. She opens it up with a ‘‘click’’ and pulls out her own brush. It is by itself, away from the others, away from any germs or bacteria that may harm her. This is a ritual.
Gabby stares into the mirror with her big blue eyes that have slight, dark rings around them. Her mother Megan helps her squeeze out some toothpaste. Then the girl, with a disorder so rare that there are only three recorded cases in New Zealand, begins to brush.
It is much like any other 4-yearold girl’s morning. But then there is rigorous sun screen application, disinfecting drink bottles and washing of hands. These small rituals may save her life.
Then after helping her mother drop her brother Lachlan and sister Ruby at school they will head to Nelson Hospital for her fortnightly blood test. This, too, is a ritual.
There have been hospital visits to Christchurch. Her blood sent to Australia and Canada. For a long time Megan and her husband Andrew did not did not really thing that anything was wrong with their daughter.
She just seemed like a normal 4-year-old girl who jumped around and giggled and acted up in the presence of cameras. She did seem pale though. But all the kids were. They were a pale family, Andrew says.
But thinking back now she was also a little yellow. She also bruised easily. Her fingernails were brittle and frequently infected. But all the doctor’s visits said maybe it was just that she had taken on another day at kindergarten. She probably had a virus. She was just tired. Let her rest, they said.
Up until last November the rituals in the Stephen’s household were different. They had just signed off building a new house and moved into a temporary home. Gabby had been at kindergarten since she was 2, without any indication that there might be something brewing inside her that could threaten her future.
Her grandparents, greatgrandparents and kindergarten teachers saw something else in Gabby, though.
They knew something was wrong. So after kindergarten last November Megan took her daughter back to Stoke Medical