By Judy Waguma
She lays exhausted on her hospital bed;oblivious of her surrounding-ward 17, at the provincial Hospital, Kisumu. She is alone in this big room.
Shortly the tea lady has arrives. Chai Chai, kuja Chukua chai! (Tea Tea Tea) but she just lays there. The tea lady moves on to the next ward. A Good Samaritan sympathizes with this girl and rushes to get her the tea.
She takes a deep breath, not interested in the tea either.“It was Thursday morning,” she says, almost like a whisper. I was at the displaced camp in Naivasha.
“A bus had just come to take us home, and I was overjoyed as I knew I was going to join my family again”.
Susan Akinyi says that she collected the little household goods she salvaged during the post election violence and was ready to go.
In her joy, the 17 year old stood holding her protruding belly, softly she whispered to her unborn baby, with a broad smile on her face, ‘home at last’
She says that the journey back to Kisumu began early.
In the bus, she sat staring out of the window, Susan could be heard humming a song, her joy profound, and even the rough road seemed like nothing.
All over sudden, her face hardens. She keeps quiet, closes her eyes and with renewed strength she continues to say, “I felt a sharp pain in my stomach, then another, then another”
She says that she panicked, and did not know what to do, since this was her first pregnancy.
“I tried so hard to hold it, I couldn’t, it was becoming unbearable, and then I started to scream, that made me feel a little better, at least it would get my mind off the pain,” she says.
In the bus, she says, a lady came to her rescue. The lady took her to the back seat and put her to lie on her back.
Her water broke, all she could feel was wetness. Unaware of what to do, she diligently relied on this lady to help her.
“The lady, told me that she had been through this before and could help me, she asked me no to worry or be scared”
To her amazement, the lady wore black rubber shoes, pressed on her buttocks, and prodded her to push.
I pushed, and pushed, and pushed, until we could see the baby’s head, she says.
Meanwhile the bus was moving, probably to get her to the nearest hospital as soon as possible.
With abated breath, Susan says that she was drained. “I was so tired, I could not push anymore, but we were lucky as I was rushed to Pap Onditi hospital”
However as they got to the hospital, the doctors there could not help the young girl; they did not have equipments to deal with her state and therefore referred her to the Provincial Hospital.
The baby could not move, and from the pain, she passed out.
At the provincial hospital, Dr Paul Mitei says that Susan had had an obstructed labour, the fetus was dead.
“She had also gotten infections, and therefore we had to remove the baby through cesarean section,” says Dr Mitei.
A week later, says Mitei, Susan developed more complications; she had severe pain in her stomach.
We had to take her back to theatre since she had sepsis, says Mitei. Sepsis is a medical condition characterized by a whole-body inflammatory state caused by infection.
Sepsis is broadly defined as the presence of various pus-forming and other pathogenic organisms, or their toxins, in the blood or tissues, says Mitei.
Susan’s condition had now worsened and Mitei says that they had to take her for surgery to remove the pus. In the process they also discovered that the upper part of her Uterus had been destroyed and so it had to be removed.
She was in danger of getting Fistula, but we have been able to save her. The doctors at the hospital had to maintain her for 14 days where she was under drugs and she was being monitored on her condition every day, says Dr Mitei.
The saddest part however is that Susan will never conceive again, she only has her lower uterus left.
But she is not moved by that.
“I knew that I would not come back after the second surgery, but I am alive. I don’t care that I cannot deliver anymore, because I never want to go through that pain ever again,” she says.
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