For most South Africans, loadshedding and cable theft is an inconvenience. For the Du Toit family, it can mean the difference between life and death. But if there’s one thing that adversity teaches us, it’s that South Africans will always make a plan, and we stick together. There’s always a solution.
For Ryno and Zandria Du Toit, that belief has come from years of navigating a reality where every day requires careful coordination, resilience, and the kind of community support that turns impossible situations into manageable ones. At the centre of that reality is their son, Revan, whose life has been shaped by a complicated start and a series of medical challenges that continue to evolve.
A difficult beginning
Revan’s story begins in the first few moments of his life, when something went wrong in the delivery room. What should have been a routine birth quickly became a medical emergency, with doctors struggling to stabilise him after he was born.
“Revan was very quiet when he came out. There were a few minutes where they couldn’t get him to breathe properly, and I think that’s where the main damage happened,” Ryno explains.
In the days that followed, Revan was admitted to ICU, where doctors initially suspected a range of issues, from fluid on the lungs to a blood infection. The full picture, however, would only emerge over time. A lack of oxygen at birth had caused significant neurological damage, leading to a diagnosis that would shape the course of his life.
Today, Revan lives with cerebral palsy, microcephaly, epilepsy, and severe scoliosis. His condition affects nearly every aspect of his development, from mobility to respiratory function, and requires constant care.
Zandria remembers how difficult those early years were, not only because of the diagnosis itself, but because of how long it took to understand it. “No one actually took us and told us, this is what’s going on, this is what’s happened, and this is what we need to do,” she says.
That delay meant the family had to find their own way forward, learning through experience, asking questions, and slowly building the knowledge and support network they needed.
Living with complexity
As Revan has grown, so too have the complexities of managing his condition. While his neurological challenges are significant, it is his respiratory health that has become one of the family’s most urgent concerns.
Severe scoliosis has compromised one of his lungs, and years of illness have left him vulnerable to respiratory failure. Today, he relies on oxygen therapy around the clock.
“He’s permanently on oxygen, 24/7,” Ryno explains. “That’s what keeps him stable.”
At home, this means running an oxygen concentrator continuously, alongside other medical devices that monitor and support his breathing. When everything is functioning as it should, the system works. But in South Africa, consistent power is never guaranteed, and that is where the challenge becomes something far more serious than inconvenience.
When the power goes out
The du Toit family lives in an area where infrastructure issues and cable theft are common, leading to frequent and often prolonged power outages. For most households, this is disruptive. For the Du Toits, it can be dangerous.
“When the power goes off, it’s not just an inconvenience,” Zandria explains. “It can last anything from two hours to 36 hours, and we have to rely on backup systems to keep Revan’s oxygen running.”
Those backups are limited. Oxygen cylinders, which are used during outages, are supplied in small quantities and must be carefully rationed. In some months, the family needs far more than what is officially allocated, relying on the goodwill of suppliers to make up the difference.
Generators are not always a viable solution either, requiring fuel that is not always affordable or readily available, particularly in the middle of the night. Every outage becomes a calculation. Every delay carries risk.
A network that makes a plan
It was during one of Revan’s recent hospital stays that a cardiologist suggested reaching out to Reach for a Dream, which creates memorable experiences for children facing life-threatening illnesses. The Foundation was able to fulfil his dream of owning a laptop.
The dream then set in motion a series of connections through a donor network that ultimately led to support from Rentech, a provider of renewable energy products and services. The company readily agreed to provide practical, life-changing assistance.
Initially, the family received portable inverter units, one of which included a solar panel. While helpful, these systems were not powerful enough to run the oxygen concentrator continuously. Recognising this, additional support followed.
“They’ve now given us a bigger unit that can handle more load,” Ryno says. “It means we can keep his equipment running for longer when the power goes out.”
It is not a complete solution, but it is a critical one. It buys time, reduces risk, and provides a measure of stability in an otherwise unpredictable environment.
Strength in community
What stands out most in the du Toit family’s story is not only the scale of the challenges they face, but the way those challenges are met. There is frustration, certainly, particularly when it comes to infrastructure failures and systemic gaps, but there is also a quiet determination to keep moving forward.
“I’m not going to stress about something I can’t do anything about,” Ryno says. “You just have to play it out and see what happens.”
That mindset is matched by the people who have stepped in to help, from medical professionals who made the initial referral, to organisations willing to think beyond their usual boundaries, to businesses that have used their expertise to solve a very specific problem.
It is, in many ways, a reflection of something deeply familiar in South Africa. When systems fall short, people step up. When the path forward is unclear, communities find a way.
For the Du Toit family, that support is tangible. It’s the difference between uncertainty and a measure of control, between risk and reassurance, and in a home where power is not guaranteed, but resilience is, that makes all the difference.