Little fighter will not give up on life
WEARING the brave smile of an emotionally shattered father, Mario De Sousa touches his son’s tiny blue hospital robe.
The heavily drugged baby boy stirs as his father kisses him and walks away. It is a ritual the father has performed over and over in the hope that his son keeps fighting to stay alive.
Sergio Amaro De Sousa turned 10 months old on Thursday, yet he has had more operations than most adults in a lifetime. Doctors at the Red CrossWar Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town replaced a shunt this week to drain fluid from his brain.
“It’s his 23rd operation and his eighth shunt,” said De Sousa. Sergio was born by emergency caesarian section two months prematurely on the day his mother Leigh fell at a grocery store, landing on her stomach. It caused bleeding on Sergio’s brain. “We would have died that night, Sergio and I, if we had not gone to the [gynaecologist],” she said.
The Johannesburg couple, who have lost their home and furniture to pay medical bills, have gone from questioning why it happened to “living each day as it comes”.
Sergio, diagnosed with cerebral palsy and epilepsy soon after birth, has spent eight months in three hospitals. His brother, Diego, 5, hardly knows him.
The couple had an “especially hard day” on Friday when Sergio was in theatre. “It rips you in two [to think that] all he knows is to fight,” said De Sousa.
And fight he has. Two months ago he was diagnosed with meningitis and doctors said he had 24 hours to live. “He was fully septicaemic and that was when his heart, liver and kidneys shut down. He has had so many operations that infections just set in. He pushed through and somehow made it. I guess he’s the strongest little baby in the world,” said De Sousa.
The couple have started a Facebook page to raise funds.
Sergio’s condition worsened
People ask how we do it, but when you see that smile, you put everything behind you and just do it. He looks in your eyes and looks into your soul
last week to the point that he could not take a commercial flight for specialised treatment in Cape Town.
Less than 72 hours after learning about the boy’s plight, a complete stranger, commercial pilot Tyron Ross, used social media to appeal for a private aircraft to fly the child to Cape Town. The response was incredible — an aircraft and voluntary medical team were organised at short notice.
“The people that helped us — there are no words enough to thank them, especially with this flight,” said De Sousa.
Said Leigh: “The hardest thing you can do as a parent is to tell God that he can take your baby if he needs him. People ask how we do it, but when you see that smile, you put everything behind you and you just do it. He looks right in your eyes and looks into your soul.”