This story is from Corinna – one of our wonderful volunteers
Beatrice, 13 yr old girl from a village outside the orphanage Mission In Action. Beatrice came to our attention in 2012 on the October mission with Kenya Health. She had a wound on her Left leg and was asking for medical assistance when we were attending to mobile medical clinics amongst the villages in the local area.
On assessment she had a deformity from birth of this leg, that had been very crudely operated on but ended up with a misshapen and disfunctional leg. Her leg was swollen and infected, painful and she was unable to walk to school.
We treated her leg for the infection both with antibiotics and wound care. We also arranged for a orthopaedic specialist review,
We took Beatrice to see Dr Klandi who explained to me he could fix Beatrice’s leg back to being 95% functional, this would give her a chance to have a normal life in a challenging world as it was.
After more discussion I asked Dr Klandi if he could cost the surgery and recovery for me as Kenya Health would be paying for her to have the surgery.
I had already made up my mind that I was going to help this little girl have a normal life.
The cost ended up being $1000 Australian dollars and i chose to pledge this to Kenya health and from this account this paid for her surgery, the hospital stays , rehab and any other little expenses. She would require 5 surgeries , a month or so in-between each, in a plaster cast. A lengthy journey but in the end worth it. her Mother was forever grateful.
How could I not help this little girl, looking into her eyes and holding her hand when we attended the clinics it was hard not to grow fond of her. So I did help. This photo is after her second surgery, her beautiful smile isn’t captured perhaps kathy caught her off guard.
