Published: 22 October 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
NOMI KALTMANN meets two Melbourne women who have drawn on their resilience from long-term health problems to create something positive out of lockdown
WALKING AROUND MELBOURNE these past few months, the city has had a muted feel to it. After overtaking Buenos Aires as the most locked down city in the world, Melbourne’s usual vibrant energy was missing as people hibernated at home with all schools, shops, restaurants, theatres closed and recreational activities cancelled for months on end.
While it’s no secret that many people in the city were suffering, some Melbournians had already found the resilience to handle the curveball that lockdown wreaked on so many lives.
For Minna Lederberger, 60, a resident of East St Kilda, her deep faith helps her to see the hand of God in all aspects of her life. While the lockdown has been challenging for her and her family, she does not believe that any situation, even the protracted Covid lockdowns, occur by chance.
“God orchestrates events in your life to happen a certain way: if something happens, it means that God meant for the situation to happen to you, there is no such thing as a coincidence,” she says.
Her belief has been tested previously.
After I lost my legs, I let go of a lot of things that are not important. I learnt that you cannot judge people harshly.
In 2012 while on holiday with her family in Queensland, Lederberger contracted an obscure virus, Acquired Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) which attacked her body.
“At the same time [doctors] diagnosed me with HLH, they also diagnosed pneumonia, streptococcal A infection and an ear infection,” says Lederberger. In a coma for over 12 days and on life support in the ICU, she was saved by a combined treatment of chemotherapy and steroids as well as blood and platelet transfusions.
