In spite of skin cancer and a brain tumour, Roedie de Wet says last year was his best thus far.
|||Diagnosed with skin cancer in December 2010, and with a tumour roughly the size of a 10 cent coin remaining in his brain, matriculant Roedie de Wet maintains that last year was his best thus far.
Speaking from his bed in the oncology ward at Durban’s Parklands Hospital, he said: “There were no words (when his diagnosis was delivered). I thought everything would go downhill in my life, but it certainly was my best year.
“I achieved all my goals. I played first team rugby, I played for academies... I don’t want to brag, but I was the first team captain,” the Hoërskool Pionier pupil, from Vryheid, said.
The cancer crept up on Roedie, who only agreed to see a doctor to have a mole on his chest checked if it meant also having an “embarrassing” wart on his hand removed.
Contending with the side effects of radiation and chemotherapy while studying proved difficult in his matric year.
“It was probably the hardest part. It takes lot of concentration to get through that barrier of ‘I’m not feeling well, I’m not feeling well’,” he said of constantly feeling tired and nauseous.
Despite this, Roedie managed to earn a distinction in his favourite subject, business studies.
He had planned to study marketing at the North-West (Potchefstroom) University this year, after being accepted into its prestigious rugby institute, but has put these plans on hold to “first get healthy”.
Mom Heilie de Wet said Roedie was not in remission, but that the treatment was “working”.
“He’s fine – it’s just the headaches... The message is, if you have a mole, have it checked,” she said.
“And wear sunblock,” her son added.
In Durban, Eden College pupil Cassim Mahomedy did not let a disability stop him from achieving three distinctions in his matric exams.
Cassim, who has partial hearing loss in both ears, taught himself to lip-read from a young age and became so good at it that his parents initially did not realise that he had a problem.
“I do not treat my hearing loss as a disability. I went to speech therapy from a young age and learnt how to lip-read.”
Cassim was initially placed at Stellawood School’s partial hearing unit, but his parents moved him to a mainstream school after his audiologist recommended it.
He was able to follow classes with the use of an FM transmitter.
“I find it difficult to hear in big classes, and when the teacher’s back is turned to the class, because then I cannot lip-read. So my teachers would wear a microphone and I would have the receiver in my ear. I also wear hearing aids on both ears.
“The teachers were very accommodating and would repeat things I missed. The matric year was not difficult; I was determined to do well.”
Cassim, who has his South African colours in waterskiing, said he wanted to pursue a career in the health sciences field so he could help people with disabilities. - The Mercury