A nine-year-old boy from Germiston is finally out of the woods after his fourth surgery since accidentally swallowing three sensory magnetic balls last May, the start of a medical nightmare for his family, reports News24.
The magnets had travelled to Theunis Rossouw's intestines and colon, causing holes to form and allowing fluid from his colon to leak into his abdomen.
In the past eight months, said his mother Tanya Rossouw, the family has been through hell. Every time they thought the worst was over, there was a new setback.
Theunis had to go under the knife three times shortly after the accident. In the first operation doctors removed the magnets, and in the second one, they tried to suture the intestines further to stop the leakages, but it didn’t work.
A third operation was necessary to try to do it again, with the doctors managing to finally close the wound.
Rossouw said: “He couldn’t eat. He had to be tube-fed and also had to be on oxygen. because his lungs started struggling from all the anaesthesia.”
He was in the ICU for more than a month last year before he could go home, but two days later he started experiencing pain in his hip and side.
“He was burning hot and we went back to casualty where he was admitted again. They found a cyst near the pancreas that they had to drain.”
In December, he was admitted for a fourth operation, this time to reverse the stoma he’d been using since June.
“Doctors thought it would be difficult because there had been so much damage inside and so many scars in the intestines. But the operation was a success,” she said.
Theunis spent more than a week in ICU and almost two weeks in a general ward before he was discharged last month. He is finally home and recovering.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Surgeons remove 100 magnets from New Zealand teen’s gut
US commission warns about toys’ magnets after children’s deaths
No watching and waiting with ingested button batteries – study