Pippi goes home on a weekend pass

For the first time in more than seven months, little burn victim Pippi Kruger, 3, has spent a night in the same house as her parents, away from a hospital setting.

Pippi was given her first weekend pass from the Netcare Rehabilitation Hospital, something her mother, Anice, hopes will be a regular thing from now on.

“I was always scared to ask (the doctors) for a weekend pass because I was scared they were going to say no,” she said on Monday.

But when one of the rehab doctors suggested it would be beneficial, the excited mom jumped at the opportunity.

And so they spent their weekend at their rented Melville home, receiving visitors – including Pippi’s original doctor, plastic surgeon Ridwan Mia.

Anice and Pippi’s father, Erwin, relaxed with their daughter, now able to watch movies and eat popcorn like a normal family.

“I actually cooked for the first time in eight months,” laughed Anice.

Another important first for the mother-daughter pair was Pippi’s first bath. It was the first time the mom was able to bath Pippi normally since she was injured.

It was a special landmark because, until recently, cleaning Pippi’s skin was a painful exercise for the little girl and had to occur under the sterile conditions of a theatre room.

Pippi was burned on more than 80 percent of her body when a gel fire lighter exploded on New Year’s Eve last year. Doctors at Garden City Hospital where she was taken gave her three days to live when she was admitted.

But Pippi clung to life, surviving multiple-organ failure, cardiac arrest five times and 45 operations.

After five months in the paediatric ICU, she made local history when skin grown from her own cells in a Genzyme lab in Boston was placed over her burns.

The operation was declared a success and she was recently discharged from hospital and moved to a rehab centre.

For about five weeks she has been receiving therapy in the Netcare Rehabilitation Hospital to regain her strength and flexibility.

Anice said Pippi’s head control and the flexibility of her legs had improved, and that she was more alert and awake.

“All of that has been giving her so much energy we actually struggle to get her to sleep,” said Anice.

She said Pippi was receiving oxygen therapy, where she is placed in a high pressure chamber and given pure oxygen through a face mask which had sped up her healing.

But sitting up and speaking are two major landmarks that still need to be reached.

“It was good to see her outside of [a hospital] environment… Going through all of that, it’s quite difficult and I have an interest in seeing her well,” said Mia of his weekend visit with the family.

He still visits Pippi two or three times a week to check how her wounds are healing.