Five years ago, she became the face of the knowledge that children can also get Q fever. Emma from Hank (11) has now been suffering from Q fever Fatigue Syndrome (QVS) for eight years and suffers from the disease every day. She tells about it together with her mother in the Omroep Brabant talk show KRAAK.
She was in the studio on Sunday, but she would rather have been on the couch. One of the symptoms of QVS, which Emma has suffered from almost her entire life. “I have difficulty concentrating, often headaches and pain in my legs,” she says about the disease that makes her very tired. Because of corona she has not been to school for two years, although she now goes to class three days a week and sees her classmates again.
Mother Angela tells how she often has to make a choice how to use her energy. “If there’s a children’s party at a trampoline center it’s better not to go, because are you willing to lie on the couch all evening with pain in your legs? But she has a lot of sweet boyfriends and girlfriends who adjust the parties to it. Then they go to the trampoline for an hour and then they go home to do something else. Then Emma can join in.”
“We ask what she can do.”
It is a recurring theme within the family. “The school camp will be soon, but cycling to the location for an hour is too long for her. Then we will bring her to the location by bike and she can continue to participate. We ask her what she can do.”
Corona has been a big bummer in Emma’s life in recent years. She couldn’t go to school and was actually mostly at home, indoors. “She really couldn’t have corona, so we have been very careful,” says her mother. But Emma is not shy and a real go-getter. She wrote a letter to the government asking for a vaccine against corona. Ruth has listened. “I’ve had two now,” she says with satisfaction.
“You just want to be Emma’s mother.”
Corona has somewhat diverted attention from Q fever, but Angela doesn’t see it that way. “I hope those people with lung covid are helped quickly and that they don’t have to search as long as we do and that they get good support. I was medicating myself at one point. You don’t want that. You just want the mother of Emma It is unclear whether the disease can be cured so the future is uncertain.
“You can live with it,” says Emma. “I’m usually happy.”