Nothing could keep Radiyah down
IMAGINE studying hard for and looking forward to an exam, only to be hospitalised a week before writing it.
This is what happened to Radiyah Salojee.
Unable to eat or drink because of tiny holes in her oesophagus that went all the way down to her stomach, Radiyah, from the Roshnee lslamic School, had to be hospitalised and was put on a drip for her 10-day stay there.
Besides the pain, all this took an emotional toll on the teenager who had been a straight A pupil all her life and had always looked forward to a matric year that had no interruptions.
For the 10 days she spent in hospital, she could not stop thinking of school and how her schoolmates were getting along with their exams. She hoped she would be allowed to write when she was discharged.
“However, I was not allowed to, and that was very disappointing. I had worked hard for that exam because the prelims would have prepared me for the final exams. But even though I did not know what was happening with me, I put my faith in God.”
Radiyah remained ill with doctors performing biopsies and scopes on her while she wrote her finals. Despite her illness and interruptions, though, she beat all the odds to achieve five distinctions.
She credits her parents and teachers for her achievements, saying they stood by her during her most difficult times.
“I was also motivated by the fact that there were other people who were more sick than me. And I thought that if they could make it, why not me?”
Radiyah has been conditionally accepted for either speech and hearing therapy or occupational therapy at Wits.