SUPPLIED

YOUspoketoGabiandStuartshortlyafter

JennadiedinJune 2015 – a fewmonthsbefore

her21stbirthday.

YOU NEWS

in nearby Netcare Milpark Hospital.

Gabi is in good spirits but she becomes

emotional when she talks about the

events leading up to Jenna’s death in June

2015.

She’d toyed with the idea of writing

a book soon after her daughter passed

away. “But it was far too early in the

grieving process,” she says. “It was so

painful.”

So instead, she ended up writing about

the lessons learnt during that time,

developing it into a model on emotional

resilience and conducting workshops.

When she finally felt emotionally ready

to start writing, Gabi went on a writer’s

retreat in Greece and stayed on for 10

more days by herself.

“When I came back, I’d written 10 000

words. Then I just immersed myself in it.”

Reliving Jenna’s traumatic illness was

tough. She consulted the diary she’d kept

during those gruelling 187 days and says

it was really hectic. “I cried, I shook.

Sometimes I had to vomit. It really was

like processing the trauma.”

She recounts days when Jen, as her

loved ones called her, was in and out of

ICU and theatre after the transplant.

“All her organs shut down. She also had

paralysis of the stomach, so she couldn’t

eat. She had infections, then she had sei-

zures, then she had an overdose. She had

appendicitis and had to have her appen-

dix removed.

“It’s insane what she went through.

When I say it was dramatic, I’m not be-

ing dramatic at all.”

Heartache hasn’t stopped the family

from promoting organ donation.

“I think I’ve made it very clear in the

book that regardless of how much Jenna

suffered, I’m still a big advocate of organ

donation and of transplants. Many peo-

ple have had very successful transplants.”

Doctors initially diagnosed Jenna with

asthma and by the time they discovered

it was pulmonary hypertension – a pro-

gressive disorder which causes the walls

of arteries carrying blood from the right

side of the heart to the lungs to thicken

• the disease had progressed.
  “That’s when we started campaigning,
  to build a profile for her and for the
  illness. Then we could lobby the Medical
  Control Council and parliament to bring
  the drugs in, raise money to pay for
  them, and fight with medical insurance
  to try to get the condition registered.
  “Now, today, if you have pulmonary hy-
  pertension, you’re more likely to be diag-
  nosed as a direct result of Jenna’s work.”
  A variety of treatments are now avail-
  able for the disease and a clinic has
  opened at Groote Schuur Hospital in
  Cape Town, where 120 state patients are
  being treated.
  “And in the first three months of Jen-
  na’scampaign, 20000 neworgandonors
  signedup,”Gabisays.

T

HEfamilyhas

beenpicking

upthepieces

sincetheylost

Jenna.

“It’sbeenre-

allyhard,”Gabi

admits.

“Thepainoflosinga childis indescrib-

able.We’veworkedveryhardtobefunc-

tional.Wecommunicatea lot.We’veall

donetherapy,meditation,yoga,talking,

andeverythingwecanpossiblydo.”

Kristisankintoa depressionandtook

a yearoffschool.“She’sdoingmuchbet-

ternow,”hermomsays.

“Shewentbacktocompletehermatric

andis nowstudyingtowardsa bachelor

ofsocialsciencesattheUniversityof

CapeTown.”

WhenKristiwas 15 sherecordeda sin-

glecalledI NeedMoreTime,whichwas

written by Jenna and produced by the

band GoodLuck.

She stopped singing for a while after

her sister died but Gabi is excited that

her songbird is back.

“One of my biggest regrets is that there

was no such thing as a carefree child-

hood for Kristi,” Gabi says. “I couldn’t

change it, but it’s really hard for the sib-

ling of a sick child.”

She describes Kristi and Jenna’s rela-

tionship as inseparable. “There was a

three-year gap between them but it may

as well have been three months.”

The family was dealt another blow

when, six months after Jenna died, Stu-

art revealed he’d been living with a secret:

he’d been diagnosed with bone marrow

cancerthreeyearsbeforebuthadn’tsaid

anythingashehadn’tneeded

treatment yet. And with

everythingJennawasgoing

through,hedidn’twantto

addtothepain.

“Hehada bonemarrow

transplanta yearafterJenna’s

transplant,whichwasvery

deeplytriggeringforallofus.

Itwasa stem-celltransplantwithhis

ownstemcells,”Gabisays.

Stuart,whorunsa consultancybusi-

ness,ishavingchemonowandisdoing

“fantasticallywell”.

“Ithinkaftereverythingwe’vebeen

through,ourbarometerforwhat’snor-

malisdifferenttoeveryoneelse’s.We’ve

hadtodevelopresilienceina bigway.”S

GETMETO 21 ISINBOOKSTORESNATIONWIDE(R270).IT’SALSO

AVAILABLEFORORDERONJENNALOWE.ORG.FOREVERYBOOK

SOLD,10%OFTHEPROCEEDSWILLGOTOTHENOT-FOR-PROFIT

JENNALOWETRUSTTORAISEAWARENESSOFORGANDONATION

ANDPULMONARYHYPERTENSION.

The Lowe family

Gabi, Jenna,

Stuart and

Kristi with their

pets, Sahara

and Prince.

‘It was really

hectic. I cried,

I shook.

Sometimes I

had to vomit’

you.co.za 22 AUGUST 2019 | (^13)