A Sad Story

On the UCRF home page, I read this very sad story. Through the Outreach part of the UCRF programme which I will be participating on, I hope to reduce such sad and avoidable deaths.

The gentleman who's legs are pictured died without Doctors telling him that he had Cancer!

This man had suffered from swollen feet and a feeling of weakness for a long time. Despite numerous visits to the doctor, he was just told that he had little blood. When infact he had been suffering from a kidney obstruction, something that  nobody had informed him. He had to go for short calls frequently, and doctors  had been treating him for bladder infections for many years. A  few days from his death bed, a doctor advised him that he needed a blood transfusion, hemodialysis, and a biopsy on his prostate (empulunguuse).  Despite the fact that he was in great pain, he was still not referred to a hospice.

A few hours to this man's death, his sister, who had lost her husband to cancer many years before arrived at the hospital to see him. Being the same hospital where her husband died from (Mulago) and noting the frenzy of activities by relatives to find money for hemodialysis, she called a junior doctor to the side and asked three questions:

1) Would the treatment recommended cause her brother to walk out of the hospital ALIVE?

• the good junior doctor answered NO.

2) Were the doctors doing anything they thought would make the patient live?

•  the good junior doctor answered NO....
  

3) Were they doing anything at the hospital that could not be done at home?

•  the good junior doctor answered NO.
  

Recalling her own experience at the hospital mortuary when they waited for her husband's body to be released to them, the 80 year old old womon confered with the man's family and friends that he should be taken to die at home, especially because there was no provision for palliative care for him in Kampala.

Whilst this was happening, the man slipped into comma, which the junior doctor explained was because his kidneys had failed. The man never acknowledged the touch from his sister as she told him:

"we are taking you home where you will join our father and our other brother".

They travelled over 120 miles back to the village where very sadly he died just minutes after the end of  the long journey. At least he was at his house surrounded by relatives and friends. They were all able to say goodbye but no one could tell whether he had heard them.

This old man had just made 60 years! Within a week, his mother who had defied death thus far-gave up her ghost! Clearly, it was too much for her

More than 20,000 people attended his funeral, all were sad about his death.

• Nobody was told about cancer.
• None of them were told that it was a preventable cause of death.
• None of them were told to do something about their own risk.

Some of the people may even be enduring the sad experience of this man. This is why the story was shared with UCRF, and now with you. From the depths of this sadness, may be a lesson which can be made so that others can be saved of a painful death without knowledge of why, or even the opportunity to put their lives in order.

  

This man saw many people about his problem. Some were proper doctors, others were not. Somehow, he died without knowing why he was dying. He had symptoms that shouted his diagnosis, and yet it he was not told. ....

maybe there other stories like this..., but this was one tough to take and remains tough for his family and friends to take.