I'M SO GRATEFUL THAT I'M ALIVE!

A simple bedroom tumble triggered a devastating medical cascade that cost Maxine her foot but not her remarkable spirit

- NICI DE WET

THEIR living room is filled with photos of her and her husband enjoying the outdoors - scuba diving, posing with an elephant, paragliding. But the memories those pictures evoke feel like a lifetime ago now.

“We'd decided to give each other experiences for our birthdays,” Maxine Moonsamy says. “Now, that's kind of over.”

The 33-year-old’s once-active life has shrunk to the confines of her home in Parklands, Cape Town, where she gets around either on crutches or in a wheelchair and relies on her husband Jateen Karson to do most things for her.

“My poor hubby is now the chef, the driver and the dog walker,” Maxine says. “I can cook but it takes so long and I have to rest my stump on a stool.”

She has been caught in a nightmare that began with a knock on the head and ended in her right foot being amputated. There was much going on in between – chicken pox, lung issues, sepsis ...

It's been a lot, Maxine admits, as their dog Coco comes over to give her a comforting lick. “She's amazing. The hospital even allowed her to stay with me while I was doing my rehabilitation.”

Adjusting to the loss of her independence isn't easy. “I especially miss driving. As a medical rep I drove every day – I loved it. Now I can’t even jump into the car to go and buy bread. It's very frustrating. I was a normal, healthy, active person. Now I’m an amputee.”

Yet Maxine remains remarkably upbeat, quick to smile with a ready laugh. How does she do it?

“There are days when I have a pity party.” ty. But I'm just so grateful to be alive.”

IT ALL started in May when Maxine fell off her bed and hit her head on the side table. A haematoma developed on the back of her head so she went to her GP, who drained it twice and prescribed a course of antibiotics.

But it wasn't healing. “My doctor told me I needed to go to hospital to have it seen to by a specialist.”