The weather was debilitating on this very bright windless, hot, sunny afternoon. The sky was clear with very occasional scudding of lightly gathered clouds. I was in the office rummaging through my drawers for a piece of paper, when I suddenly heard the wailing of a woman, the voice must have been that of one, no doubt. She had brought herself to the facility and as is custom, the nurses swung into action. I didn't budge. It's a normal thing if you are a doctor especially. Five minutes later she was somewhat calm, I was called upon and vitals shown to me. She had had a severe abdominal pain 4 days prior to presentation and treated herself for "typhoid and malaria" at some chemist but the pain persisted, she vomited and after the second day she noticed her stomach swelling and pain became unbearable. How she managed the third and fourth day she couldn't explain. Experience plus symptoms whispered "perforation" to my ears. I ordered for blood work while the team went ahead to pass a tube through her nose, then another one through her urethra to help drain the stomach and bladder respectively. We rehydrated her and made her as comfortable as possible. We then requested for an ultrasound and an Xray of the abdomen. All returned with features of perforation. We explained the situation to her and asked if she could afford referral to a specialist in a teaching hospital. Your guess is as good as mine. She is the first child of her parents, all late now, in fact she had just recently returned from the internment of the last of them, the dad. Apparently, he had been sick with some chronic illness that necessitated hospital admission that caused them to sell everything they had including part of their farm land. The end result? Death. She is an orphan. To make matters worse, her husband had sent her packing with her 7month old child because she had had an altercation with her father Inlaw. She was at her wit's end.
She told me this with tears and said maybe this was her lot on earth, to suffer and die, and she was ready to take that burden, at least she would be at peace again. The baby was her only concern. How you women do this is what I do not understand. I mean even on your dying bed you care only for the lives of your children rather than yours. I have had several occasions of this sort of event. One time it was an accident victim, a breastfeeding mother, who had an avulsion of the scalp. With all the pain and bleeding, she kept asking for her baby, wanting to breastfeed her. I was moved! Completely aghast. Back to this one, I already knew God just brought her here for a purpose, to the rural doctor initiative for him to show himself strong. We prepared the theatre and before we could take her in for surgery.... What happened next was unbelievable. To be continue....
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