Cheryllynn Matthews

So it all began on 3 March 2006 when our little boy was born, Euagene Robert Matthews. 2 months later Euagene was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. At the age of 3 months Euagene had his first open heart surgery. We where young newlyweds, a year later we had a baby and then things got really bad. Euagene's surgery was very complex as his specific condition was never heard of in the world. Euagene passed away on 7 November 2007. During all this time, my father was shot; we had no where to stay; work was a struggle; our medical aid went bankrupt and left us with millions of rands in debt. Euagene had lived in the hospital because he could not breathe on his own and he had a total of 5 open heart surgeries within 18 months and went to theatre to stretch his airway 3 to 4 times a week so that he could breathe. He was in a private hospital, so you can imagine the level of costs that rose daily from his stay in CTICU. Our boy passed on and life didnt feel worth living; nevertheless, we got up out of the ashes and both found jobs, got sponsors and had the help of medical staff and doctors. We were so badly blacklisted that even we felt that we would never be able to even dream of owning our own home; but we never gave up. Our names were later cleared by a miracle we were free of most of the medical debt - not all of it but we worked hard. My husband worked away and we only saw him once a month. How can I put it?