A man who lost his voice and part of his face to a deadly tumour is now forced to communicate with the help of a whiteboard.
Jaco Pretorius was left shocked when what started as a simple toothache became a life-threatening emergency.
The 48-year-old handyman was recently discharged from hospital, where doctors spent 22 hours cutting away a massive bone tumour from his face and reconstructing what remained with skin harvested from his chest and legs.
Jaco now has a long scar that cuts across his cheek, while a feeding tube snakes from his stomach.
The surgery that saved his life has also cost him his voice.
“Speech is gone. Struggling to walk. But I’m back,” he writes.
Jaco, who once made his living with his hands, can no longer work.
Simple daily tasks that he once took for granted – eating, speaking and walking without assistance – have become impossible or require significant effort.
And his journey is far from over – Jaco still needs additional surgeries, including a lower lip reconstruction.
He claims to be unable to afford the surgeries but maintains that the money will somehow materialise.
He writes: “I’m going to play the lotto.
“Joke.
“God will provide.”
Jaco’s ordeal began with something deceptively simple – he had toothache last November and thought his troubles were over after he had a tooth extracted.
But the pain refused to disappear, and by January, a lump had started growing on his jaw.
He went back to the dentist, who prescribed antibiotics and sent him home, but the lump continued to expand, and the pain intensified.
When the growth reached the size of a tennis ball, Jaco consulted another dentist who performed a biopsy.
Because he doesn’t have medical aid and couldn’t afford the costs of private tests, the specimen was sent to a state laboratory.
His sister-in-law, Taryn, who has become his advocate, said: “The results took two months. It’s supposed to take two days – they even lost his results at one point.”
When the diagnosis finally arrived, it confirmed the family’s worst fears.
Jaco had squamous cell carcinoma, a common type of skin cancer which is usually easily treated when caught early.
Jaco was placed 18th on a waiting list at Charlotte Maxeke Hospital, but with just two operations performed at the state hospital each month, the cancer had time to spread aggressively.
The tumour burst through Jaco’s skin, creating an open, festering wound, as reported by Need To Know.
Taryn said: “Between January and June, Jaco went to hospital every day to have the wounds cleaned.
“But often nothing happened – he’d just sit and wait for more than six hours.”
Eventually, Jaco, from Boksburg, went for wound care at private clinics, but the underlying tumour continued to grow.
With Taryn’s help, he created a BackaBuddy crowdfunding campaign and began desperately seeking alternatives to the public health system.
A chance conversation with a local petrol station owner changed everything when he mentioned the Cancer Alliance Foundation.
The organisation immediately referred Jaco to Dr Johann Kluge, a head and neck surgeon at Cintocare.
Dead tissue was carefully removed and for the first time in months, Jaco could bear to look at himself in the mirror when he got home.
On 15 June, Jaco’s treatment at the private hospital began when a surgical team led by Dr Kluge cleaned his wound.
Taryn said: “It was very traumatic for all of us.
“We saw things we’ll never forget.
“If it wasn’t for Dr Kluge and everyone at Cintocare, Jaco would be gone.”
Although doctors had managed to clean his wound, the huge tumour was still there, preventing him from eating normally.
When Jaco returned to Cintocare on 1 July for a routine feeding tube insertion, his condition had deteriorated so alarmingly that doctors immediately admitted him.
He was dangerously weak from months of being unable to eat properly.
Dr Kluge’s team were ready to perform the life-saving surgery but the costs exceeded the £1,985 (R45,000) that Jaco’s family had raised through BackaBuddy.
Desperate for additional funds, Jaco sold the house that he shared with his grandfather, Neels Mouton, to pay the medical bills.
Then one of his old school friends did a remarkable thing – he bought the house.
Once the sale had gone through, Jaco used some of the proceeds to pay for the surgery.
He and Neels now live in his mother, Wilma’s, house.
Before the operation, doctors told Jaco he would likely lose his tongue and the ability to speak.
The family faced an impossible choice, but their decision was unanimous – his life was more important than his voice.
During the marathon procedure, surgeons removed the tumour along with his tongue, sinus canals, part of his jaw and lower lip.
Skin was carefully harvested from his chest and legs to reconstruct what remained of his face and neck.
Jaco spent 73 days in hospital and returned home in September.
Taryn says Jaco has taken legal action against the national health department.
She added: “If they had helped him earlier, he would still be able to speak.”
The family has also started raising money to have a new lower lip built for him and to cover the hole in his neck.
Much has changed for Jaco, who used to do bodybuilding in his spare time.
That chapter of his life is permanently closed as surgeons harvested bone from his legs along with the skin for facial reconstruction.
Without his tongue, jaw, and lower lip, Jaco now breathes through his throat and cannot eat or swallow normally, leaving him dependent on the feeding tube for nutrition.
But Jaco is choosing to focus on the positive.
He writes: “I can still smile, thank you, God.
“And I’m stronger than I thought I was.”
