Pumped for a cure-FAMILY'S BLEEDING HORROR

The firefighter highlights a red flag for those living with a dangerous disorder

- Hayley McLarin

As a teenager, Tineke Maoate's daughter Teagan begged her mum for a hysterectomy. Coping with a genetic blood disorder, she desperately wanted to live without the excessive bleeding during her period and was willing to never have a child of her own to be freed from the ordeal.

Tineke, 47, knew only too well what she was going through, as she also suffers from multiple bleeding conditions which cause extreme blood loss each month, prolonged bleeding if injured and also caused concern when she gave birth to her six children.

"I did take Teagan to see a specialist, but he said he ethically couldn't do it when she was so young," recalls the King Countrywoman, who chose to have a hysterectomy herself at 35 after her youngest child was born. "I wanted it earlier, but I didn't meet the criteria, even though I had von Willebrand disease and another platelet condition."

In hindsight, both Tineke and Teagan, now 27, are pleased the procedure wasn't done, with the arrival of Teagan's son Sylas five months ago.

Yet Tineke is sure much of the trauma and angst all of her children, who were diagnosed as babies, go through could be avoided if there was greater awareness of their condition.