Page 21 - Daggabay Magazine Issue 9

2015…

November 2015 found us relocating to
Cape Town and to new professionals. This
time round we are extremely blessed by
having doctors and surgeons making
Tiana a priority and she feels important –
she has even lost her fears of hospitals
due to traumatic experiences at the

previous hospital.

2016…

February 16th 2016 Tiana underwent
another double lung lavage via ecmo.
This time round they could not do both
lungs simultaneously. The first lavage on

her one lung took 12 hours and the
following day the remaining lung 8
hours.Tiana’s DNA was sent to America to
the same professor who received her DNA
at the age of 3 weeks in order for more
research to be done. Due to unforeseen
complications they were notable to come
to a final conclusion on the first set of
DNA. Now with two sets of DNA, and our
permission they were able to do the

extensive testing needed. Results came
back only to inform us that all these years
Tiana had been misdiagnosed and
actually suffers from a disease called
ABCA3 which is also a rare and life
threatening disease of the lungs.

Photo by Jonathan Cosens
Photography