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Anzelle van der Bank was a healthy baby girl until November last year when she had her first epileptic fit.
"We were very scared," her mother, Amanda (23), says. "I ran into the Trichardt Mediclinic that morning still in my pajamas."
When Anzelle (1) – or Zellie as she's affectionately known – was born on 26 May 2022, she initially wasn't breathing but doctors were able to resuscitate her after four minutes, much to the relief of her mom and dad, Andries (31).
Right from the start there were challenges. Amanda started looking for answers from pediatricians shortly after Zellie turned six months old when she hadn't reached the same milestones as other children her age.
"At nine months, she still couldn't sit or pick up her cup," Amanda says.
They took her to a paediatrician in Trichardt, Mpumalanga in March last year but even after she'd had a CT scan and all kinds of blood tests and consulted dozens of other doctors, there were still no answers.
Eventually in August, Zellie went for an MRI scan and the doctor noticed an abnormality in her skull.
"Doctors thought her skull dimensions might affect her nervous system, and this might cause her not to reach her milestones," Amanda says.
Apart from those milestones that were not reached, Zellie was a happy little girl, and her parents took her everywhere, even on fishing trips.
But since she started having epileptic fits, everything has changed.
"I just quit my job because she needs so much essential attention and has seizures," says Amanda who previously worked for a courier company. "Because I'm not working now, it's also quite difficult for us financially."
Her husband works as a construction manager at Sasol in Secunda.
Zellie has been at the Life Wilgers Hospital in Pretoria since February after suffering 28 epileptic seizures in five days.
She is on seven different types of medication. In addition, doctors recently found out that her body is resistant to many of the epilepsy drugs.
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"They are currently trying to test which medication works for her and they are trying to see if the times they give it to her make a difference," Amanda says.
Zellie will also soon get a gastrostomy tube – a tube connected to her stomach so medication can be injected.
"Doctors want to do this because she often gets nauseous from the medication, so her body has a better chance of absorbing it if it's injected directly into the stomach," Amanda says.
After months of various tests, they still have no answer as to what causes the epilepsy.
"The attacks sometimes even happen when she is sleeping, or when she is eating. It has already happened when she had food in her mouth. Sometimes she also has 'silent' epileptic seizures, where she shows no symptoms at all that she is having them," Amanda adds.
She's permanently at Zellie's side in hospital and sleeps on a cot next to her bed.
"It's not nice, but the fact that she always smiles makes me stronger. When I walk into the room and she smiles so big, I know I can be stronger one more day. When she gets excited and throws her arms around my neck like that, it gives me hope."
