I'M JUST THINKING OF MY GIRLS

A choking incident at daycare left their baby severely brain damaged and she died a few years later. Now this couple have to cope with a breast cancer diagnosis

- JANA VAN DER MERWE

THE past few years have been tough for the young couple. First their youngest daughter had a choking accident that robbed her brain of oxygen and left her seriously disabled.

Little Mienke then died in 2020 at the age of three and her parents, Ryno and Verna Mulder, are still struggling to come to terms with their loss.

Now the family have been dealt another blow. Verna (30) recently received a shocking diagnosis: she has an aggressive form of breast cancer. The news has left her shattered but her main concern is for her two other children, Leané (8) and Zamoné (6).

“I don't want them to grow up without a mom," she says. “I'm not even thinking of the treatment, the surgeries. I'm just thinking of those two little girls.”

In their short lives Leané and Zamoné have had to process a lot. Their baby sister was just six months old when she choked on milk at her daycare centre and was rushed to hospital where she spent months barely clinging to life.

She pulled through but her brain damage was severe and doctors warned Verna and Ryno their little girl would never walk, eat or speak.

Then, one morning in September 2020, the couple had to break the news to their daughters that Mienke had died peacefully in her sleep.

"The whole world prayed for Mienke.” Verna says. “We got every possible treatment we could - we even travelled to India for stem-cell treatment. And now she's not even here anymore.

“So I'm thinking, we can do chemo, we can do everything the doctors tell us to, but what if the cancer spreads? What if something happens to me now?"

Ryno (35) is sitting next to his wife. His eyes are red, but he's putting on a brave face. “I tell Verna this is just another mountain for us to climb. And I tell her I take comfort in the fact that we've climbed worse mountains together!