- Elize Pieters will return to the North West on an oxygen machine after a five-week battle with Covid-19.
- She believes she contracted it while on her way to the West Coast to celebrate her grandchild's birthday.
- She now plans to be vaccinated after previously being dead-set against getting the jab.
The road to Stella from the West Coast will be extra-long for Elize and Coen Pieters.
While she arrived in the Western Cape an active and healthy gran two months ago, she is returning to the North West on an oxygen machine, which will have to be charged on the roadside with a generator when she needs it.
Elize, 68, was hospitalised for five weeks during her battle with Covid-19.
The once sprightly and talkative grandmother of eight, who still exercised with her husband, and never needed chronic medication, now cannot speak without pausing for air after the virus ravished her lungs.
She needs help getting to the toilet, has lost her independence, and cannot be left unattended because she needs constant assistance with even the most menial of tasks.
But, despite not being able to breathe for long periods on her own, Elize's experience has left her with a new zest for life – the retiree wants to return to farming by growing microgreens with her husband, and spread the word of the importance of vaccination in her home province.
Initially dead-set against registering for the jab, after reading messages and social media posts claiming that it was "made from foetuses" and causes paralysis, her near-death experience has turned her into a crusader for inoculation, so that others don't end up in a hospital bed like she did - in tears because she was unable to touch or speak to her loved ones delivering her necessities mere metres from where she was bed-bound.
"You have a brain, the ability to think and question what you read. Who wrote that it's bad, on what authority? Was it verified by people with knowledge or thrown together in a message by some tannie who isn't a doctor, a professor, who doesn't even have understanding about the costly experiments and research that was done?" she insisted.
"You've got time now to go for vaccination. When Covid comes, you don't have that option anymore. Some people go in to hospital and never come out [alive]. Get that injection, so that you don't have to go there in the first place. I hope that, once I am vaccinated, I never have to repeat that time in my life again. I never want to go through it again."
She believes that, despite all her safety efforts, she contracted Covid-19 while on her way from Stella to the West Coast for her grandchild's birthday.
"I came down to visit my children with some friends, to come celebrate with the little one. We took every precaution – we even 'piepie-ed' on the side of the road to avoid garage stops," Elize said.
Three days after their arrival, she started feeling poorly, complaining of headaches and a high fever.
She was tested a few days later.
Three days after her diagnosis was confirmed, Elize was admitted to the Vredenburg Provincial Hospital.
"It happened that quickly – I just couldn't breathe anymore," she recalled.
She was in the government facility for five weeks, most of it spent on high flow oxygen. She said:
She continued: "I kept praying that, if God wanted me to come to him, I was prepared to go. But if I had a stay, please send me back with a purpose. Vaccination is that purpose. And, as far as I can, I will try to convince people to do it."
Elize said most of her immediate family have gone for their jabs. One close loved one, however, refuses – she has made it her mission to change his mind.
"In hospital, you see the complete picture of what this disease can do: death, coughing that sounds like bronchitis, people with the most severe diarrhoea … not everyone has the same symptoms. It's not pretty. Not at all. So the most important thing is to keep safe and not end up there in the first place. The vaccine helps with that."
According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, over nine million vaccines have been administered.
Currently, people 35 and older are eligible for the jab, while those over 18 will be able to be vaccinated from 1 September.
Elize plans to get her shot once her post-Covid waiting period is over.
She and Coen, who will get his second jab later this month, will start their trek back to Stella on Friday.
He even travelled to Cape Town to buy a generator to keep her oxygen machine operational.
She misses the simple things, she said, like breathing on her own, getting up from the couch unassisted, and being able to taste a good cup of coffee.
But she is determined to get back up on her feet.
"I cannot just sit like this for the rest of my life. I would die!" she insisted.
"Right now, all I can do is rest. At least, it gave me time to crochet a new jersey for my dachshund, Girly."
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