BEING SAD DOESN'T HELP

She’s lost 95% of her colon and has spent the past eight months in hospital – but Nicola hopes her upcoming surgery will mean she can soon go home

-  MARELIZE GRBICH

HER emaciated body seems to almost dis- appear under the covers of her hospital bed. For the past eight months the sound of tea trolleys, the footsteps of nurses and the cries of fellow patients in pain have been part of her daily life, the backdrop to an existence she finds herself trapped in.

She passes the hours by watching reality series on her phone, drawing, reading and waiting for her mom to come and see her during visiting hours.

Nurses and doctors are also often by her bedside checking her vital signs, examining her, and reading her chart.

It’s not the life Free State teen Nicola Bornman would choose, and one would understand if she resented her fate – but just one look into her sparkling blue eyes and you realise the human spirit and the sheer will to live carry far more power than a body wasting away.

“I’m doing well,” Nicola (19) says with a bright smile. “I got very good news the other day. The doctors think they can operate on me next week. Then another 10 days in the hospital and I can go home.”

For nearly a decade Nicola has faced numerous health challenges that have ravaged her body to the extent that she now weighs just 34kg.

First, she was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that affects the lining of the digestive tract. A few years later, her colon was perforated during a colonoscopy and she had to be fitted with a stoma bag.

She then had surgery during which 95% of her colon was removed. In the process her small intestine was punctured twice. Her wound wouldn’t heal and a part of her small intestine pushed through the gap and is still outside her body.

“It looks like little roses,” she says, touching her stomach.