Happy "eye" day, today!

Last week, the same day that Simon and I handed over the Anesthesia machine, Janneke and Elias went to the Eye hospital in Tororo. The eyes of Joshua are not doing well and after calling over the phone with the doctor, we had to come back. Joshua was admitted in the hospital. We had that idea, so we had asked the auntie of Joshua to come along  and to stay with him in the hospital. That was not a problem, so they talked with the doctor that they could call us and  left money for food for the auntie and Elias and Janneke came back to Soroti. During the week we had contact with the doctor and heard that Joshua was fair. Yesterday Elias and I went to Tororo to visit Joshua. It is a three hours drive and we also took Josephine's mother

with us. Josephine is Simon's wife and her mother became blind (3 weeks ago). So Josephine and her sister also came along, ready for admission.

Joshua was just having a some injections in his eyelids, under anesthesia, so when they brought him back, he was still asleep. His eyes were both covered and the nurse told us that they would remove that tomorrow.
The mother of Josephine was lucky, they found our that she had catharac in both eyes and they were able to put her at the end of the list for operation that same day!! The doctor told us that we could pick both patients tomorrow to take back home.

So today we drove again to Tororo, now Simon was the driver! Both patients were ready for home, they had packed everything and after the paperwork we could go. Josephine's mother was a different person!!! She was so happy, she could see again and now she was talking and smiling, while yesterday, she was a very scared lady, no talking, very weak. They operated only one eye, the second eye will be done in two weeks.

 Joshua was also happy to come home. Here he is smiling, while we are driving back to Soroti. I am so amazed how good he takes everything, he comes for his medicines and I think he is the most easy patient ever! We have to go back for review in 2 weeks.

So we were all in a happy mood, driving back to Soroti!!!

In the mean time, left Elias for Katakwi. Some of you, who read this blog and who have been here in Amecet, may remember Evalyn. She has been living in Amecet twice before, in 2008 and in 2010. Evalyn is HIV+ and she lives with her brother in Katakwi, very far from Soroti. Evalyn doesn't get ARV's yet, she just gets a prophylaxis from a health centre in Katakwi. Normally everybody who is HIV+ has to have a CD4 test every 6 months. Recently we found out that that has not been done with Evalyn. The last test was done when she was with us. So we asked her brother to bring her to Amecet and we enrolled her in the HIV pediatric clinic in Soroti Hospital for the test. The test was done and her CD4 was even higher (= better) than before. She is not in need of starting the ARV's. We will get her to come to Amecet every 6 months for the test and we are all very impressed with the brother of Evalyn, he is taking so good care of her! I wish that there were more brothers like Evelyn's brother!! On the picture, you see Evalyn standing at the right, she is a big girl now, 6,5 years old, left is Jesica.