‘I DON'T WANT MY FAMILY TO FORGET ME

Carli van Aswegen is facing a death sentence as she battles brain cancer – but she’s determined to be strong for her loved ones

- JANA VAN DER MERWE

FIT weren’t for photographs, it would be hard to believe the woman lying in the bed is the same girl who danced on stage, beamed radiantly on her wedding day and joyfully cuddled her baby boy.

At just 26 years old, Carli van Aswegen is unrecognisable as the young woman she once was – full of energy with her whole life stretching ahead of her.

She has accepted that her days on Earth are numbered after receiving a devastating diagnosis just over a year ago. She has cancer of the brainstem and in December doctors told her there was little more that they could do for her.

“I’m not exactly afraid of dying but I do feel a little scared,” Carli says, her eyes welling with tears. “I’m afraid that heaven won’t look the way I imagined it.”

She wipes her tears with a hand swollen by medication. The young mom is being cared for by her husband, Daniel (27), who’s keeping a constant vigil at her bedside in the garden cottage of his parents’ home in Bloemfontein.

Little Micah, their three-year-old son, is at daycare but Carli’s mom, Hester Potgieter, and her mom-in-law, Lulu van Aswegen, are here, slipping in and out of the room to check in on her.

Carli had her makeup done especially for YOU’s photoshoot. She’s had false lashes attached and there are blonde highlights in her hair. But, as a result of cortisone to counteract the side-effects of radiation, there’s no sign of the willowy, healthy young woman who smiles from the pictures Lulu shows us.

“I miss being healthy, being able to pick up my son, to exercise, to play,” Carli says.