[very] long-term follow up!

 Some of you may recall seeing photos of a little girl we met right back in 1991.  She came from a poor family living in a remote village.  Sadly she was badly injured by a paraffin stove which caused serious burns on her right chest wall, right armpit and the inner aspect of her right upper arm.

She did not receive any proper treatment in the local town and the result was that extensive scar tissue formed and her right arm became adherent to her chest with severe limitation of her range of movement.

This situation lasted some months and then she developed some infection in the arm under an area of the scar tissue.

This time they came to Kisiizi, simply expecting some antibiotics etc to treat the infection.  I took the photo on the left when she presented to us.

Happily we were able to do more and under general anaesthesia released the scar tissue to allow her arm to be freed.  However, this left raw areas on her right chest and upper arm so we skin grafted these with donor skin from a thigh.

After a further “tidying up” procedure, I took the photo of her going home now able to carry a bucket on her head.  Without this surgical intervention she would have had a permanent disability that would have probably prevented her from getting married.

We did see her again once in her remote village when we had visited Kisiizi in 1995 but not since.

You can imagine then how touched we were to find that, having heard we were in Uganda again, she decided to travel down at once to see us.  This was a challenging 7 hour journey from Fort Portal where she now works for a bank.  She came with her fiancé, Stuart, and they plan to marry next year.  They are both Christians and seem very happy with life.

It was wonderful to see how well Loyce has done and she was very happy to raise her arms high for the photo. 

When I asked her what she remembered of her time in Kisiizi having the treatment, she described something I had long since forgotten.  Of all the things that stood out to her was that the second time she was due to go to theatre, and was maybe a bit apprehensive, I apparently sat her up on my shoulders and she “rode” there, enjoying every minute!

So we rejoiced together and thanked God for how things have worked out.