East ‘survivor’ speaks about her torturous battle with polio

"I was a perfectly healthy girl. Within months I was confined to a wheelchair."

June 25, 2020

Carli Koch 3 minutes read

At the age of 15, she was a dancer, cheerleader, kickboxer and had the world at her feet. A few months later, however, she was told she would not live to celebrate her 16th birthday.

Today at the age of 32, Melanie Jacobs is a motivational speaker and is here to share her journey with the world. After all possible tests, it took eight years for doctors to discover that she had polio. She was told she would never be able to walk again, but she was determined to prove the world wrong.

Melanie grew up in Roodepoort where she matriculated at Hoërskool Florida who offered her a sports bursary.

“I was a perfectly healthy girl. Within months I was confined to a wheelchair. I was so far removed from the girl that I used to be that I felt like a monster. My perspective of life changed in the blink of an eye.”

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One day she noticed a wart on her left hand, and like most teenagers, she was ’embarrassed’ by it. After a dermatologist removed the wart for the second time, he prescribed the polio vaccine as a possible cure.

“Who would have thought that a few drops of the vaccine would turn my life upside down? And no one thought to trace it back to that day,” she said.

“After a few weeks of having received the drops, I realised there was something wrong. I had no energy and struggled to breathe.”

Melanie consulted multiple doctors who could not give her a diagnosis and told her her symptoms must be stress-related. But day-to-day things got worse.

“I wasn’t stressed. I always have been a happy-go-lucky girl. I loved school and there wasn’t a day that I didn’t want to go to school.”

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Three months later she was bound to a wheelchair. Both her feet and her left hand turned inwards at a 90-degree angle.

“I was on severe pain medication. Two months had gone by where everything was a blur. All that I can recall from that time is what I wrote in my diary and the pictures I took. We tend to take moments for granted and having all those photos reminded me of how much I still have to live for. This is why to this day I am still a photo fanatic,” she said.

“After being bed-ridden for three years, I realised if we could get my feet straightened I would be able to walk again. A Pretoria-based orthopaedic surgeon fitted the Ilizarov frame, which was adjusted daily to tear my ligaments, muscles and tendons, to straighten my feet. It was excruciating. A pain I do not wish on my greatest enemy.”

“After nine months with the Ilizarov frame, I underwent numerous operations to straighten my feet and get them as ‘normal’ as possible.”

To date, Melanie has undergone 32 operations.

“I know I had to learn to walk in a different way, but that’s okay. I am grateful to be walking. Constant pain is part of my life, but you adapt to your situation and make the best out of it.”

It is Melanie’s goal to make a difference with her story. To inspire and motivate, to uplift and give hope. Melanie laughed as she talked about living through the Covid-19 pandemic, having survived polio for 16 ‘stolen’ years that she was never supposed to survive.

“At least life is never boring.”