To make matters worse, Mhangani, who is now 19, had lost his mother the previous year and had to look after his two younger siblings as a result.
Mhangani was a speaker at the opening of the Zakithi Nkosi Paediatric Haematology and Oncology Clinic at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto this week. The state-of-the-art facility was donated by the Stanley and Daphne Nkosi Foundation to provide comprehensive haematology services along the entire spectrum of anaemias, bleeding disorders, thromboses and malignant haematology, including leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma.
She beat the illness and last year she graduated with a bachelor of science in physiology and psychology from Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University in Ga-Rankuwa, Gauteng. Professor Gita Naidu, the head of paediatrics at Bara, said, contrary to popular belief, common blood disorders such as leukaemia, as well as brain and kidney cancer, were treatable in 85% of child sufferers.