Chanah Rivka
Brenda Berlowitz went to her seventh month scan of her pregnancy in November 1998 which displayed the foetus has having a rare condition alobar holoprosencephaly. The doctors detected that the brain lining was filled with cerebral fluid and that the foetus would either die in utero or live a maximum of six months after birth. The news threw Brenda and her husband into total shock, despair and denial. They hurried to meet with two further ultra sound experts, both renowned Doctors in Israel. On each occasion the results were confirmed and the awful consequences of her conditions extrapolated.
Brenda and her husband lived with this news for two fearful months, afraid to share it with their children and close family friends. Chanah Rivkah’s head grew at an alarming rate. In two months the cerebral fluid of the brain filled the one existing brain chamber causing the cranium to become disproportionately and abnormally shaped.
Chanah Rivkah was born on the 25th January 1999, by way of a massive elective caesarean section at Jerusalem’s Teaching Hospital Hadassa Har Tzorfim. The professor of the unit immediately isolated her from Brenda as it is the custom in the medical profession in such cases, in order to disrupt the bonding and leave the baby with minimal medical intervention and thereby survival prospects.
Brenda and her husband decided in the early hours of the morning following the birth to make emergency arrangements for a private ambulance and highly skilled theatre sister to accompany Chanah Rivka and her father to the Tel Aviv Ichalov Hospital. Awaiting them at Ichalov was Israel’s foremost paediatric neurosurgeon Professor Shlomo Constantini whom Brenda and her husband had met prior to the birth. Professor Shlomo Constantini assessed the situation and said that Chanah Rivkah had a slim chance of surviving the emergency brain surgery. Chanah Rivikah survived the surgery as well as an insertion of a VP shunt. This was a miracle. Chanah Rivkah returned home after a few weeks.
In 2009 the Berlowitz family decided to come live in South Africa. Chanah Rivkah is now 12 years old. She suffers from cerebral palsey, retardation and quadriplegia. She also suffers with seizures and reflux. Even with all these challenges in Chanah Rivka’s life she is able to wake up with a smile on her face and ‘j ump over’ the hurdles of the day. With the limited resources her family is able to provide, Chanah Rivka’s physical condition is being maintained through the generous volunteers and therapists who are providing assistance to her.
