Updates on a few stories.

For those of you who've been following along in these adventures for some time, I have a number of updates to share with you.

Yar: The young girl with the bone sticking out of her arm, in need of surgery (read her story here), has had a 'break through' of sorts. We have been dressing her arm for weeks, trying to keep infection from setting in while we look into flights and raise funds for her surgery. Last week, a piece of gauze got stuck on the bone. While trying to remove it, the bone came out as well! Now all she has is a wound that is healing nicely. She can move her arm without much pain. There are still limitations, and we still need to get an x-ray, but it's looking up. Woohoo!

Achok: The woman with the outrageously engorged breast (read her story here) came in for another prenatal today. She is open to having surgery on it if we are able to help her. I'm told there is a surgeon coming in a few months for a short-term trip and/or she might be taken to Kenya. All this is a bit speculative but I remain hopeful. Pray for her. Twelve years is a long time to wait for relief.

Veronica: The young girl I prayed for last year after finding out she was pregnant out of wedlock at 15 years old (read her story here), returned for a prenatal today. We were just finishing up, when it occurred to me that she was the brokenhearted little thing, weeping her eyes out just a few months back, but I wasn't sure. So, I asked her and she smiled sheepishly, apparently happy to be remembered. Relieved to see her again, I asked her for an update: Was her brother understanding? Did she have to drop out of school? Was the father of the child honorable? She explained that she was able to stay in school (at least this year), her brother didn't beat her and the father of the child is helping support her. She looks great. Praise God!

12 years... ?

A woman came in today for a prenatal. She is 4 months into her 7th pregnancy and is almost (if not well into) her forties. The Sudanese sun hasn’t been kind.

She has a disarmingly sweet smile but it’s not the first thing you notice about her. 

When I was checking her in, I noticed a large growth on her side. It was well hidden by her wrap, so I couldn’t tell what it was exactly. But one thing I knew for sure, it was big.

Due to her age, I thought she’d be menopausal with some kind of abdominal growth. I was wrong -- twice.

Her growth was actually her right breast. It was roughly the size of a small cantaloupe melon with a 40 cm diameter. When I asked her how long she’d had it, she explained that it’d been that way for 12 years.

Apparently, after one of her babies her breast got very engorged. It increased to the size it is today within a few days. And at the time it was very painful. Ever since, she has been unable to breastfeed from it and after each pregnancy, it leaks “pus”.

When she walks it dangles mid-thigh and only hurts her chest due to its weight. She explained that she sometimes wraps it up over her left shoulder but it just gets too hot. She prefers to let it dangle to her side.

It’s symmetrical and non-fluctuant, even a bit fibrous. I’ve never seen anything like it outside of obscure medical books.

I asked her if she has ever seen a doctor about it. She explained that three years ago she went to Wau for a check-up but they said they (too) had never seen anything like it and couldn’t do anything for her.

I encouraged her to go back and get another opinion. I know of doctors (in the Philippines) doing full mastectomies in the jungle, why couldn’t they do something about her right breast in Sudan?

Engorged...

On Friday, one of my prenatal patients came in a few days postpartum with a seriously engorged left breast. It was 2 and 1/2 times it’s normal size and shiny with stretching. It looked outrageously painful.

We helped express a lot of the milk and even got the baby to nurse from it. Well, I’m not sure what happened over the weekend... but she came in today with open erosions on her skin. Engorgement has progressed to Abscess ridiculously fast.

Or had it? It is guessed that her family in an effort to help with the engorgement continued to express the milk very aggressively. They made things worse. Now she has three large erosions on her breast. It is still just as engorged. I can barely imagine the pain she must be in.

Thinking that it had become an abscess, Dennis incised it today. No pus was removed but a drain was placed in and we’ll be caring for her daily until it improves. I honestly don’t know what to think.... other than ouch!

I’ll keep you posted.