They Said She Wouldn't Live

While little Nadya is awaiting surgery to drain fluid from her brain, YOU celebrated her milestone first birthday with her.

- Pieter Vanzyl

BEFORE she was born doctors were already predicting the worst. They said she’d live for only a few weeks, a month at most. But the plucky little girl has proven them all wrong. It’s now almost a year since her birth and Nadya Roos gurgles with laughter at the balloons and pink ball with a face on it next to her oversized head.

Born with hydrocephalus, a condition previously referred to as water on the brain, her head is 62 cm in circumference – much bigger than the average size of 45 cm for children her age.

For her mother, Melissa, seeing her child reach her milestone first birthday is nothing short of a miracle.

To celebrate, YOU has brought fairy wings and a pink and purple butterfly cake as an early present. Nadya shakes the rattle – which was also in her birthday package – as soon as her mother gives it to her. A green hat with rabbit ears is too small for her head. “She’ll be able to wear it once she’s had her operation,” her mom says hopefully.

Melissa (23) and her mother, Christa Roos (46), moved to Cape Town from their hometown of Pretoria in January in preparation for the surgery. But before a team of doctors can operate to drain the fluid that’s built up in various pockets around her brain, Nadya first needs to be free of the infection that’s dogged her over the past few months.

“She only cries when she’s sick,” Melissa tells us. “And then it’s so heartbreaking that we all cry with her.”