Words: Brigid O’Connell
Photography: Jay Town

Doctors at The Royal Children’s Hospital had run out of the answers for one-month-old Charlize. In her first four months alive, she would endure 27 operations on her twisted bowel.

Just hours after Charlize was discharged from the maternity ward she was vomiting green and passing blood.

Scans at the RCH showed her bowel was twisted, and emergency surgery was needed to untangle the intestines and remove her appendix.

But over the next week – starting on Good Friday – she deteriorated. In what would be a recurring event, her NICU room was turned into a makeshift operating theatre so Mr Nightingale could remove 49cm of her dead bowel.

For that first month she teetered on the edge of life and death, with Ms Napiza and husband Sherwin never leaving her side.

“I’d always talk to her, especially before surgery, telling her; ‘Be strong. Show them how strong you are’,” Ms Napiza said.

Click here to read the full story in the Herald Sun.

To donate to The Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal, go to goodfridayappeal.com.au or phone 9292 1166.