Diagnosed with a brain cyst as a nine-year old girl in 2016, Cadi de Jager didn’t just recover from brain surgery; it became her very calling. Now, she’s chasing her dream to become one of the very doctors who saved her.
Cape Town, South Africa (08 June 2026) – “I want to be a paediatric neurosurgeon because I know what surgery feels like.” These are the impactful words of Cadi de Jager.
Once a little girl whose growth was marked by lines on the wall, Cadi’s journey with the Children’s Hospital Trust began in 2016 after her family grew concerned that she was being outgrown by her sister, who is four years younger.
Initially, the endocrinology team at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital diagnosed her with a benign brain tumour on her pituitary gland. Doctors later discovered it was a Rathke’s Cleft cyst, which is less dangerous, but Cadi still had to undergo endoscopic surgery to have it removed.
The surgery was done at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital and was a success.
She was later chosen to be the hospital’s junior ICU ambassador after astounding people with her extraordinary understanding and pronunciation of highly complex medical terms.
Cadi also led her own fundraising campaign that raised well over R100,000 towards building the hospital’s new and improved paediatric ICU.
Although Cadi went on to achieve a full recovery and grow at a normal rate again, she suffered temporary vision problems earlier in 2023 when her cyst began to regrow. Thankfully, however, it is now dormant again, allowing Cadi to focus hard on her academic work – and make her childhood dream come true.
“I think it’s safe to say the Red Cross saved my life. The nurses were phenomenal. Some of the nurses even felt like my grandma. They were there to wipe away the tears when my parents went to the bathroom or out for a breath of fresh air, and I felt like everything was just too much,” recalls a much-grown-up Cadi, adding that one nurse squeezed her hand in comforting assurance that she was going to make it out of surgery alive.
Now, as the Hospital that saved her future celebrates its 70th birthday, Cadi is a first-year medical student who even job-shadowed the neurosurgeon who performed her surgery as part of a school project.
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Cadi is forever grateful for the care she received from the hospital team and is now standing at the beginning of her path to becoming one of the doctors she once admired. Her dream of going from a patient to a physician is just beginning, and we’re simply in awe of her beautiful journey.
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