Miracle recovery for teen

[caption id="attachment_161993" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Nicolene Hutchinson is conscious and smiling again after spending months in hospital with tuberculosis meningitis[/caption]

When she was hospitalised with severe bleeding on the brain caused by tuberculosis meningitis, doctors told Nicolene Hutchinson’s foster mother to prepare for the worst.

If the condition did not prove fatal, then Nicolene would surely suffer severe brain damage, but Molly Bam – who runs the Jehovah Jireh Haven in Alexandria where Nicolene, 17, grew up from the age of six – would not give up on her.

Tuberculosis meningitis is an often-fatal strain of the bacterial disease that attacks the membranes of the brain and the spinal cord.

The prognosis is often poor, even when it is treated with the strongest medicine.

“I would bring her sister, Natalie, to her bedside and tell her, ‘Sing! Sing The Lord is My Shepherd to her’,” Bam said this week.

“She [Natalie] said she couldn’t because she was too sad. I said, ‘Sing! She can hear you’. ”

After weeks of prayers, songs and dedicated medical care, Nicolene opened her eyes in what Bam said she believed to be a miracle.