People often ask me what kind of disease our clinic had treated in this rural remote part of Kenya.
In our earliest years in Tharaka, Cholera was epidemic there. Education and sanitation have made that less prevalent. Malaria is the major threat from the presence of malarial mosquitos. This increases during the rainy season, of course. Typhoid and Amoebic dysentery are treated regularly. Burns, cuts, and snake bites are seen also. Many local people cook on open fires, use sharp instruments and sleep on the ground making this concern more likely.
This is a picture of a father and his son in our Landrover that we were taking to a hospital for emergency treatment. The child was bitten by a very poisonous snake and they did not seek treatment until the next day. The hospital being a couple of hours away makes it impossible for many families to receive emergency care. The journey required my constant prayer vigil over him as we proceeded. We paid for his surgery and care at a Catholic hospital where a very compassionate doctor treated the child right away and kept him until the incision healed. As we drove away from the hospital we spoke our gratefulness for the child’s life and encouraged his father.
There have also been situations that have stretched my comfort zone. Like the time that a mother stayed near our campus after hours by a tree to deliver her baby so that she would not have to deliver at the local maternity clinic. I’m not a nurse but sometimes I had to adjust and help in times of emergency.
That is the serious side of some of our experiences. Then there was the little boy who complained of ear pain. Our nurse dug a bean out of his ear!!