Sitting on the white couch in the living room of her Stellenbosch home on a rainy autumn day only a year and four months after undergoing brain surgery, Nicole Hinze talks passionately about her Master’s studies in Medical Physiology and Prosthetics and her long-time wish to become a biomedical engineer. Dressed casually in grey sweatpants and a hoodie, she radiates sincerity as she tells her story in her home language German.
A proper dose of real life was handed to Hinze when she was given a brain tumour-diagnosis in November 2017, kicking off a whirlwind time of undergoing surgery, recovering from it and shipping off to the Western Cape to further her studies.
“I was told that I was having allergies”
Nicole Hinze (25) grew up on her parental farm near Piet Retief in Mpumalanga, along with her three siblings. She shares an exceptionally close bond with her twin brother, Marcel. After attending a German primary school and an Afrikaans high school, Hinze decided to move to Pretoria to study Physiotherapy.
She served on a wide variety of social committees and liked partying, going out and being “a social butterfly”, as she describes it. Her days consisted of attending lectures followed by various meetings. In the evenings Hinze enjoyed doing sports activities and then repeated this agenda the next day.
Her biggest love was sport and being active. Hinze calls herself a lover of extreme sports such as motorbike riding, mountain biking and water-skiing – anything that would produce an adrenaline rush.
For a moment a hint of longing surfaces in her eyes while the cold daylight peacefully streams into the room from the big window behind her.
With a gentle smile Hinze recalls, “I actually always thought to myself that I am very lucky and very happy with my life. Everything was awesome.”
“I saw myself as a strong person, nothing can break me – that type of thing. But it turned out that my body was not actually as strong as I thought it was.”
During her third year of university the first signs that life as she knew it would change, started emerging.
Radiating a sense of utter calmness and immeasurable strength, Hinze explains that it all started with a strange taste in her mouth.
“My tongue started tasting metallic and later I started coughing. I didn’t know what it could be. I went to many doctors, probably ten doctors. From homeopaths to dermatologists but never to specialists. I was told that I was having allergies.”
The doctors put Hinze on numerous diets in an attempt to combat her alleged allergies.
“First, I stopped drinking coffee, then I stopped eating nuts, then I went gluten-free. I knew something was wrong but I just didn’t know what it was,” Hinze explains animatedly.
She emphasises each step of her diet-journey by tapping her hand lightly on the couch.
But none of these methods seemed to be working. Her symptoms started getting worse and more frequent in the following year. A pattern started emerging and it became clear that especially physical activity triggered her symptoms.
This eventually started affecting her work as a physiotherapist but the doctors kept brushing it off as allergies.
During a visit to her sister, who lives in Cape Town, Hinze experienced what she describes as one of her episodes.
“We went hiking and I had this thing again. I blacked out for about 30 seconds. But I don’t fall over or anything. I’m just not there – I got these episodes.”
Her sister, a medical student at the time, told her that it could be Epilepsy. They immediately made an appointment with a neurologist in Pretoria who confirmed that it was indeed Epilepsy. As part of the standard procedure when dealing with Epilepsy, Hinze was also told to go for an MRI-scan.
She takes a slow breath and gently runs her hands over her light grey sweatpants.
“The Wednesday after the scan the doctor phoned me and told me that I have a brain tumour.”
Nicole Hinze showing off her new hairstyle after the operation. PHOTO: Supplied.
That evening Hinze had an end of year function that she was determined to attend despite having received the bad news only hours before. Her colleagues immediately recognised that something was wrong, and she knew she had to tell them what was going on.
“They all started crying and I was just sitting there like ‘okay, it’s fine!’,” Hinze explains laughing out loud at the memory.
“The hardest part was telling my boyfriend [and my parents] that I have a brain tumour.”
Her smile fades slowly as she continues to speak.
“For me, it was not so much about how it affects you but how it affects the people around you. They don’t know how to handle it, what to do, how to console you.”
Upon her next appointment, Hinze’s neurosurgeon informed her that the tumour was likely not to be cancerous. But one could never be too careful, and so it had to be removed.
“The tumour was pretty big – three by four centimetres.”
Hinze pauses for a moment and swallows before resuming her story.
“Then I had to decide when to have the operation. The doctor said it had to be as soon as possible.”
The family decided to go to St. Lucia for two weeks to get away for a bit. Hinze used this time to think and pray about when to have her operation.
“I have never been so calm”
On the 6th of December 2017 Hinze underwent her operation in Pretoria at the Little Company of Mary Hospital.
“It was funny,” she chuckles, “I was so cheerful in the week before the operation. I slept like a baby. I was so relaxed. God was really with me and I have never been so calm.”
“I was never afraid of what would happen but I just kept wondering why. For me, there were two options: either I become healthy again or I go to heaven. And I was fine with that. I was more concerned about the people I would be leaving behind.”
She exudes serenity, an almost palpable sense of peace, as she speaks.
“I was actually just really happy that I was in that situation and not anyone around me because you don’t know how to console that person and how to handle the situation.”
“My poor [twin] brother wasn’t doing very well. He couldn’t sleep and his blood pressure spiked. At one point we were almost more worried about him that about me,” laughs Hinze.
Before her operation, Hinze and her twin brother decided to shave their heads together, as her hair would have to be shaved in any case.
Hinze giggles again and explains: “We decided to get half of our heads shaved so that we could still look the same!”
Nicole Hinze and her twin brother Marcel after having half of their heads shaved before the operation. PHOTO: Supplied.
The operation took much longer than planned. There was excessive bleeding due to the position of the tumour. The doctors had underestimated the complicated position in which the tumour was and thus could not remove it entirely.
“Most of it was removed but the chances that it might grow again are at 70 percent. So that’s bad. But I’m just hoping that I’m part of the other 30 percent,” Hinze says with a slightly nervous giggle.
Nightmares and nausea
Hinze describes her recovery as challenging and frustratingly slow. Initially she could barely walk and was bothered by horrible nightmares. Her mother took care of her, bathed her and even slept next to her to be there when she woke up at night.
She was told to take time off for a year to recover properly but Hinze didn’t want to be at home, feel sorry for herself and become depressed. She decided to move to the Western Cape for work in February 2018, only three months after her operation. In hindsight Hinze realises that this was a rushed and somewhat foolish decision.
Adjusting to the new environment without the support system she had at home proved to be extremely difficult for her. Still battling with chronic headaches, extreme fatigue and nausea, she couldn’t build up her social life yet which made adjusting even harder. But she decided that she was going to get better on her own, step by step. And she did.
Nicole Hinze enjoying life after her recovery. PHOTO: Supplied.
“I actually feel much better now than I ever did before because I was always battling with the Epilepsy and everything. I appreciate things more, appreciate friends more. This year is just really nice,” she says with a smile that reaches her eyes.
Now Hinze wants to build up her fitness again and is slowly but surely getting back into her beloved sports activities while juggling her Master’s degree and physically taxing part-time job, again proving her immeasurable strength and determination.
“[I learnt that] life is not as serious as it’s always made out to be. You have to decide what is important. If you don’t enjoy doing something, then don’t do it. Life is short. Do what you know is right for you.”