Giving Hearts, Part I

First of all, thank you on behalf of the Kenyan people, to everyone who made a donation!  The medical supplies will help hundreds of patients at PCEA Chogoria Hospital and the baby clothes are already being soiled, washed, and baked under the sun repeatedly.  I tried to allocate the monies to different sectors of the local society, so there are a variety of stories here and even some opportunities for further assistance.  I will mention one thing, it was difficult for some people to appreciate that the donations were not coming from me, but instead a stranger back in the US...so most will identify me as the donor, I tried!
First up, the Comprehensive Care Clinic (HIV clinic), very efficient and long-standing, just suffered the loss of a major donor.  A small portion of their funding comes from the hospital, but their budget is covered mostly by NGO donors.  All medications for HIV and related issues are free because of these donors and office visits are affordable.  In addition, the remaining donor (AIDSRelief) is no longer able to provide multivitamins to the clinic- a once daily is recommended for all HIV+ patients in their protocol.  I was able to donate a supply of liquid vitamins for children and tablets for the sickest adults.  100 bottles of liquid and 4,000 tablets.  There are 2,904 patients in the HIV clinic.  The supply was gone before I left Chogoria.

The CCC is also in dire need of a Viral Load machine and the clinic director has supplied me with a formal letter in case I am able to locate a donor.  This machine would assist the team greatly in determining whether or not a particular drug regimen is being effective for the patient, instead of just waiting to see if their immune system cells decrease again.  There are currently only 5 of these machines in Kenya and one at CCC would operate for the whole eastern region.

Second, a patient I saw, an HIV+ man in his late 30's who had painful lumps under his right armpit and a red, swollen bicep muscle.  He had pyomyositis, an abscess within the muscle and it had already spread to the lymph nodes in the armpit.  He was a single man, no children, and lived in his family's compound.  He's been a tea leaf picker for as long as he can remember and just wants to be as productive as he was a couple months ago.  Spending every last earning for transportation to the clinic and the appointment fee, he had nothing left for an Incision&Drainage and antibiotics.  The danger was waiting to long and the infection becoming septic- throughout his bloodstream.  More at stake than just losing an arm.  I decided to cover his expenses as the whole package (surgical consult, minor surgery, medications) only cost about $35 dollars.

Third, Mr. Geoffrey Kariuki Mjagi, a tea farmer and father suffering from Lupus (SLE) and Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA).  Christine, another American medical student, and I met him while taking a walk on the dusty rural roads outside of Chogoria.  He was pushing himself in a wheelchair to the evening mass when he felt urged to stop us and tell us his story.  He had had a good business in planting tea and tilling others' land, until five years ago when both knees were destroyed by the autoimmune arthritis and secondary bacterial infections.  He spent 3 years in and out of the hospital in Chogoria and also in the capital of Kenya.  Now his knees are unable to extend, limiting him to a crouched position, unable to stand.  Since then he has been without any major flare-ups and still manages to till some land while working from his wheelchair.  A double-knee replacement costs at least 750,000 shillings, only a dream to Geoffrey.  But this is what he was hoping we could provide for him.  I suggested he come find us the following week at the hospital to discuss what he really needed.  Just then a motorcycle passed and he waved it down.  Within 2 minutes he had the wheelchair collapsed and secured on the back on the bike with him in the middle.
Sure enough he found me at the CCC a week later.  I explained that the best I could do was look for orthopedic surgeons doing mission work in Kenya.  But I wanted to know how I could help in the interim.  He gave a hesitant smile and went on to tell about his wife, Veronica, four months pregnant, and his daughter, Wendy, who is excelling in the 1st grade.  A week later a letter came for me describing all his needs he was unable to express on the spot.  What would be most helpful to his family would be tea plants.  There was family land ready to be sowed, and they could harvest three times a year.  The tea distributor was over an hour away and that transportation would have cut into donated plants.  So we decided to go with coffee plants!  So much tastier anyway ;)  The coffee plant factory was just a few hills from his house and he had already completed the free coffee-growing educational courses provided by the factory.  I was able to provide 120 seedlings and enough fertilizer.  Harvest will only take place once a year, starting in two years so this was a different type of investment but he was grateful all the same.  I was invited to come meet the family (very EXTENDED family..and pets...and livestock) and had the pleasure of presenting Veronica with many baby outfits.  We shared stories while eating tree tomatoes- if you bite into them you can squeeze out dark red bloody seeds.

 Geoffrey in his fields, the land for coffee planting is on the left.

 Geoffrey, Wendy, Veronica, and I