Special Patients This Week

This week has been a very full week seeing patients with eye disease. I thought that I'd post a few of my favorite patients from this week and tell you a little about them.


We saw this little girl at the Mobile clinic this week. She has an eye ulcer that we helped treat. Hopefully it will resolve with the medications that we gave her, and her vision will improve without other interventions.


This precious little boy has retinoblastoma, cancer of the eye. The tumor has been growing since about December and has greatly enlarged the eye until his presentation to us this week. His tumor was so advanced that the eye could not be saved. So, he had to have his eye removed this week so that the cancer would not spread to his brain and liver. We are praying that his cancer will be just localized to the eye. He was such a strong, courageous little guy in the OR. Patients here are not wheeled back to the OR--they walk into the room and climb up to the bed. He was obviously so scared and had a few single tears rolling down his cheeks. I began to rub his back and talk to him, and he started whimpering. I teared up too, knowing how scared he must be and also knowing that the surgery ahead would not give him sight but instead was necessary to save the rest of his body from cancer. The surgery went well, and he was fitted with a prosthetic eye matched to his seeing eye. He plans to follow up next week, and we are hoping that he will be doing well.

This is another tough case that we faced this week. This teenager presented with a bilateral orbital mass above his eyes. He was very self-conscious, wearing a hooded jacket and looking at his reflection often with a broken mirror that he carried. The mass was biopsied, and it turned out to be lymphoma. He will receive chemotherapy and radiation; we are praying that this therapy will heal him completely. Seeing these two difficult cases this week reminds me that illnesses are often much more advanced when they present to Tenwek due to lack of access to care in distant villages. We are hoping that these two young guys will be spared from having disease that has spread to other parts of their bodies.

One of the saddest patients we cared for this week is a two-year-old who was severely burned on his face by boiling water. We were consulted because his eyelids are now scarred, and his eyes are not closing well, making his eyes very dry and subject to scarring and infections. We saw him in the pediatric ward lying in bed with his older brother (probably 3 years old) who pulled the boiling pot of water onto him. His brother was also burned but not nearly as severely. This little guy has a long road ahead. The ophthalmologist thinks that he can help save his eyes with medicines and eventually surgery.

This man had a happy ending. He is a Kipsigis gentleman with dense cataracts that limited his vision profoundly. Following his surgery today he left with a great big smile on his face, as he is able to see again!

This sweet lady had cataract surgery recently and came back to us for follow up. She is doing very well and was so happy being able to see again.