By SALOME GREGORY for The Citizen | Wednesday, April 10 2013
Five years ago, she went to bed seeing perfectly well, but when she woke up the following morning, she was completely blind. For the then 19-year-old young girl full of life and ambition after completing her studies at Kenya High School, her world suddenly turned upside down.
It was like the feeling of a helpless infant thrown into a dark alley with no hope of help coming. And Margareth Maganga could not find the answers to the string of desperate questions that haunted her day and night.
But it was during this darkest moment of her life that the now 24-year-old rose to find herself studying and completing a law degree at the University of Leeds in the UK. And now, she is a postgraduate student at the Law School of Tanzania where she is pursuing her postgraduate diploma in practical legal training.
She is also doing an internship with a law firm in Dar es Salaam as part of her law school programme, and she hopes to be done by July. Come December, Margareth hopes to be admitted to the Bar as an advocate.
Hers is a story of fate, resilience and hope captured in the book she wrote, A Journey Through Darkness.
“My aim in writing this book was to share my experience with people,” she says in an interview with Tanzania'sThe Citizen.
Best chance
Margareth hopes to take a euro from every copy sold and donate to the education of visually impaired east African primary school pupils to help them in the transition to secondary school.
“I want to help ensure that they have the best possible chance of an independent future,” says Margareth, who has since regained her sight.
“After countless visits to and from various hospitals in Tanzania, doctors told me that I had increased brain fluid, and so advised me to have immediate surgery in South Africa or in the United States,” she says.
It all started in January 2008. She was in Taiwan where she had gone to participate in the final World Youth Conference for Adventist Youth.
“I spent the day ignoring a fever and some muscle pain. I didn’t want to look unwell,” she recalls.
"As the day ended, at around 9 pm, I was feeling some serious pain. I could not help it anymore. I was then taken to hospital, and the laboratory results said I was chronically anaemic, I never knew about this.”
There were two options for treatment: blood transfusion or tablets to keep her well until she returned to Tanzania for further treatment. She was given the tablets, and on the following day she flew back home and to Mara region in northern Tanzania where she resided with her parents.
Two days later, her parents took her back to Dar es Salaam for treatment. On arrival at Muhimbili National Hospital, she was advised to go for a CT Scan to identify the problem.
Still dark
They got the CT scan results on the same day, but they were wrong. It did not go as the optician had wanted. So, they had to go back to the hotel, and wait for the following day to get the right test.
"All the time I had serious pain, but I did not agree to spend a night at Muhimbili after doctors recommended me to be admitted. The wards were full of people, there were no beds. Why would I spend a night there? I insisted on going back to the hotel with my parents,” says Margareth, the only girl in a family of four.
The following day, she woke up blind.
It was around 8 am but Margareth remained in bed because she thought it was still dark. She only realised what was happening after her mother came to wake her up.
Her mother asked what she was still doing in bed at that time, and she confidently replied that it was still dark outside.
"It happened five years ago, but I still remember everything like it happened yesterday. I rubbed my eyes, opened them wider, but it was still dark. I yelled out, I can’t see, I can’t see, but it never helped me,” she says.
Her mother tried to calm her down as she helped her to take shower and dress her up so that they could go for breakfast. To make her comfortable, both her parents acted like nothing had happened.
Excruciating
Outside, people who had seen her walking all alone just a day before were asking questions now that she was walking with the help of her parents.
“This was an excruciatingly tough period for me and my family. I depended on my mother for everything. I was completely helpless on my own. And to think that all my future hopes and dreams had come to an end was absolutely heart wrenching,” she says.
Travel arrangements to the US did not delay in order to save her life. US seems to be the best for them as Margareth’s family had a relative who lives there.
“Upon our arrival at the UMASS Memorial Hospital in Worcester Massachusetts, further tests diagnosed on me with pseudotumor cerebria condition. This is a condition in which there is excess brain fluid, which causes the optic nerve to swell hence causing the blindness. So I had surgery to help regain my sight,” she says.
The surgery left her with a machine called lumbar shunt. Lumbar-peritoneal shunts are used in neurological disorders, in cases of chronic increased intracranial pressure to drain excess cerebrospinal fluid.
"The surgery cost us a lot financially. I had been completely blind for almost a month. I slowly started regaining my sight. I could see or at least make out the shape and colour of something.
"I was happy with the results and thanked God for the miracle. Slowly, but surely, I would smile every time I stared and had a look at my family and friends’ faces because I never wanted to imagine not seeing them again.
'Take for granted'
"When you go through an experience like this you learn how not to take people or things for granted. I never fully recovered my sight, the doctor’s told me a lot of damage had been done, however I am grateful for the little I can still see," she says.
Margareth, who is now partially sighted, is trying to raise funds and set up a charity to help visually impaired and partially-sighted children access education.
In 2011, she organised the Tribal Instinct Fashion to raise money for the Ketwang’i Children Charity in Kisumu. As the culture representative in the Students’ Union, she also organises wedding showcases for various cultural groups (East African, Polish, Irish, Brunei and Ghanaian ).
At the Law School she is also the Vice President of the 12th Cohort students. Cohort students can be defined as a group of students working together through the same academic curriculum.
She strongly believes that when one cannot see or has lost part of their sight, it does not mean the end of the world for them. "Had this been the case, I would not have pursued my degree or actively taken part in the university society activities or even written the book,” says Margareth.
"The struggle, the inner battle, and help and support from my family, friends and well wishers, helped me pursue my law degree,” she says.
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