Miriam Itzkowitz – Year 11

Every year, our High School library hosts a speaker for International Women’s Day. This year the speaker was Tanya Savva, and her story was completely inspiring.

Tanya is a single mother whose daughter, Mackenzie, was born very sick, blind and three weeks premature. Tanya and her then-partner were told that Mackenzie was never going to be able to walk, talk or eat and was likely to be mentally delayed. Tanya spoke about how she couldn’t change this, so she chose to accept it.

Mackenzie couldn’t eat orally, so she was fed breast milk through a tube in her stomach, chronically vomiting every night for two and a half years. She was severely underweight and Tanya recognised that she wasn’t getting the nutrients she needed from her breast milk. Tanya thought that if she fed Mackenzie food, she would get the nutrients she needed. All the doctors told her it was a bad idea and not to do this, but she followed her motherly instincts and chose to go against their wishes, feeding Mackenzie food. Within 48 hours, Mackenzie stopped vomiting and the doctors called it a “miracle”.

Unfortunately, during that time, when Mackenzie was only ten months old, Tanya also became a single mother and moved in with her parents. Feeling like a failure, Tanya reiterated again how she had to accept a situation she couldn’t change and so she had to choose to cope.

Tanya and Mackenzie

Mackenzie flourished beyond all odds. She started to eat orally and took her first steps when she was three. She also started talking. Tanya and Mackenzie were living comfortably, with Tanya working as an Occupational Therapist and Mackenzie settled in school. On a whim, Tanya decided to go caravanning around Australia for six months with Mackenzie and pulled her out of school, deciding to sell everything and quit her job in order to travel.

Again, doctors didn’t recommend it, but she chose to ignore their wishes and do it anyway. As a result of this trip with Mackenzie, she wrote a children’s book called The Adventures of Kenzie-Moo, about everything that Mackenzie “saw” while they were away.

The pages inside this book titled ‘I saw’ are all black, due to Mackenzie’s lack of sight. Mackenzie actually narrated all these pages about what she “saw”. The caravanning trip lasted for about six months, only ending because Mackenzie wanted to go back to school. While she is held back physically, she is very smart and actually shares many traits with those on the spectrum, like being able to give you the day of the week your birthday is on in any given year. She is also fluent in reading Braille.

Tanya is currently writing her memoir and works as a yoga therapist. She also runs retreats, coaches and speaks. Mackenzie is in school and doing very well.

Tanya is an immense inspiration to me. She has been extremely resilient throughout the entire progression of Mackenzie’s life – obviously being a huge support to her and an integral part of her development. She has shown me that it is important to follow your instincts and continuously reiterated the necessity for acceptance and individual choice. I think she was a perfect choice for International Women’s Day because of her strength as a single mother who had to remain strong in such a difficult situation.