01 February 2016



MIRIAM AND YUSUF

HEROS AND SUCCESS

     Meet Miriam and Yusuf.  You should know I never use the real names in these pictures.  But they are Muslim and that is important to this story.
     Yusuf came at one year of age, wasting away.  We figured out he had low thyroid hormone, began him on medicine and basically saved his life.  He looks scrawny here but he looked like a famine victim when I first saw him.
     Someday Miriam may save my life.  In December a bus was travelling in Kenya from the town of Mandera very far north of Mombasa on the Somali border.  It was ambushed by Al-Shabaab terrorists who ordered the Muslims and Christians to separate.  The Muslims surrounded the Christians and some women even gave the Christian women their Muslim clothes (hijab) to wear.  They told their abductors to kill them together or leave them alone.  This shocked the extremists.  It had never happened before.  Dumbfounded and confused they started shooting and left in a panic.  They shot and wounded the Muslim deputy head teacher at Mandera Township Primary School, Mr. Salah Sabdow Farah.  Bullets lodged in his hip and arm.  He was air lifted to the National Hospital in Nairobi on 22 December and he died on 18th January due to the injury to his hip and bleeding in his kidney.   Sadly, I only found the small newspaper article by chance at the bottom of the page in one of the national newspapers.  It should have been the headline news on the front page.  It should have been picked up by the international news agencies, just like the story of the three Americans who acted on the French train to save peoples' lives.  He died trying to shield his fellow Kenyans and he is a hero.  


GUINEA WORM

Now for the success part of this blog!!!!  I worked in what is now South Sudan from 1991 until 2003.  When I moved to Toposaland in 1997 the Carter Center was working in our parish to try to eradicate Guinea worm by the year 2000.  These nomadic people moved their cattle from place to place and were always short of water.  This nasty little creature infects a person when they drink contaminated water.  The filarial worm is contained in a flea (Cyclops) in the water and when it is ingested the stomach acid destroys the flea and liberates the worm.  The worm then passes through the wall of the stomach and the male and female mate.  The male promptly dies but the female takes a year to move to the extremities and she can become two to three feet long.  When she reaches her destination she causes a painful blister to form and the person puts their foot in a pond or pool of water to get some relief from the pain.  As the blister opens little worms are released into the water and if a person drinks the water the cycle begins all over again.  The big worm needs to come out and local people would slowly wrap it around a twig and remove it over a couple of days.  There is no other treatment for the big worm and the person is in such pain they can't work for many weeks.  One of my patients had 62 worms come out of his little body!!! 
     Our dispensaries worked with the Carter Center to educate and distribute cloth filters and pipes.  If people used filters to strain the fleas out of the water, transmission could be stopped.  At one time there were 3.5 million infections in 21 countries.  When we were working in South Sudan only 13 countries, all in Africa, still had the worm.  We helped Ethiopia eradicate it in 1998 because we were working right next to their southern border.  But the goal of eradication in 2000 came and went and there was no way to succeed while Sudan was still at war.  Then, the peace accords were signed in 2005.  That was the ticket to progress.  Last year there were only 22 cases reported in South Sudan, the last country to harbor this little critter.  The cycle can be broken in one year if every reported case is isolated and prevented from transmitting the worm.  2016 could be the year for success.  If this happens, guinea worm will be the second infectious disease to be eradicated from our planet.  (The first disease  we stopped was small pox.)  To be honest I AM SO EXCITED AT THE POSSIBILITY!!!  The Carter Center is also a place full of heroes.



PEACE OF THESE LOVE BIRDS AND ALL OUR HEROES TO YOU!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

01 January 2016

YUSUF (not his real name) How old do you think he is?

1st JANUARY 2016

WORLD DAY OF PRAYER FOR PEACE

 

     The nurse had seen this little boy five days earlier and she thought his cheeks were a little swollen.  However, he had malaria so she treated him and told him to come back to see me.  He and his mother have HIV and both are on treatment.  In just five days the swelling had greatly increased along with swellings in his jaw and leg.  I was sure he had cancer but it was only two weeks to Christmas and this is the worst time in Kenya to get sick.  Everyone goes home and few staffs are working.  The mother refused to tell anyone in her family about the HIV infections because she was sure they would exclude them from the family and blame her for getting sick.  We don't charge them for their treatment but she didn't have money to get to the hospital.  So, we gave her the equivalent of $25 to go to the district hospital to get x-rays and I went to hospice to get morphine.  He had terrible pain, especially at night.  He is now in the provincial hospital where they have confirmed he has cancer.  He does not have a very good chance of survival with all the family and financial problems.  We can treat his pain and make him as comfortable as possible.  Perhaps if it is a Burkitt's lymphoma he will respond well to treatment and surprise me.  He is five years old but looks more like three.  Mother and child...such a hard life.

      FEAST OF MARY QUEEN OF PEACE

     In another clinic before Christmas I saw an 18 year old young woman with a pelvic infection.  Treating this problem revealed a litany of social challenges.  She finished five grades in school.  She was impregnated at age 15 by a married man.  He gives her some support for the child so she continues to meet up with him.   She gets treatment for the infection but he refuses to be treated so she gets re-infected.  She's really just a girl trying to survive.

     I sent her to the social worker who is very gifted in helping with these challenges.  We both encouraged the young mother to leave the married man and go back to school to finish eight grades.  Just as she was ready to leave she asked me if there as a chance she could have another albino child.  I was dumb founded.  After all of our interviewing and counseling we had failed to find out that her three year old son has albinism, a genetic disorder where the skin fails to produce pigment and the person looks white.  Exposure to ultra violet rays of the sun can easily cause cancer.  It is not uncommon here and there is tremendous social stigma attached to the condition.  In the most severe instances albino children and adults have been killed by witchcraft and their body parts used by the witch doctors for their evil machinations.  And yes, if she becomes pregnant by the same man again there is a 25% chance the child will have albinism.    

     All during this Christmas season I have been thinking of Mary and Jesus in light of these mothers and their children.  Why do so many young women and their children have one problem after another?  More importantly, what can I do for them?  When I am creative I find there is always something I can do for them.  In this coming year let us look at possibilities and be creative.  Let us not be overwhelmed by all the evil and troubles that seem to sprout like weeds.  Let's be hopeful and do what we can...with love and compassion.                                         

WISE OLD OWL

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2016!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PEACE OF THE WISDOM AND CREATIVITY THIS COMING YEAR WILL BRING