This past Saturday, 19th February 2022, marked exactly one year since my mother got her life-changing surgery. Over the past year, I have mentioned in several of my stories about taking her to the hospital but I have never really written about it in detail. I have intentionally avoided writing about it because of various reasons.
First, I didn’t want to attach her before pictures to the story, because they just break my heart. Second, part of me felt (still feels) like by writing about it, I would be trying to use her illness to popularize my blog which would be the last thing I would want to do. Finally, I don’t know. I just wasn’t (still isn’t fully) comfortable writing about it.
So why I’m I writing about it today? Because my mother—God Bless her Soul—insists that the story could help someone.
“You know you’re scared of posting the before pictures because of how bad you think they are. But those are the ones that need to be seen the most. There could be someone in the same or worse situation and once they – or their friends and family see them – they would know where to turn to.” Her actual words.
She had been going to KNH for almost a year following a twisted web of appointments that led nowhere. Her condition got exceptionally worse and turned into our worst nightmare. Of course, she’s right. Nobody should go what she had to when there was another way out.
So now more than ever, the story needs to be heard.
After my mother had been in Kenyatta for a while, we started looking for options. That’s when I learnt about Top Hill hospital. I mean I had heard about the hospital before, but it so happened that Leroy’s father had recently taken a friend of his to the hospital and he had received the help he deserved. What amazed me, was the convenience with which he went and got his treatment (which happened to be a surgery).
So one day I was telling him (Leroy’s dad) about how my mother had not yet received help, and she kept on getting worse. Her face was literally swelling by the day. That’s when he suggested that we try taking her to Top Hill. I had thought about it, but it was just one of those thoughts that you did not fully have because you brushed it off too fast. Somehow, I did not find it feasible to ask my mother to travel all the way from Thika to Eldoret to get treatment. I myself had never even been there. Also, you know the typical thing is for a patient to travel from Eldoret to Nairobi to get treatment. I also didn’t think that the thought would even be embraced by my mother herself, leave alone the rest of the family.
Either way, I googled Top Hill, trying to get their contacts, and I did. You know what even seemed more unbelievable to me, as soon as I texted via WhatsApp, I got instant feedback. And not, it wasn’t the WhatsApp autoreply messages. The hospital actually had a functional customer care service desk and helpline.
I told my brother about it and he told me to pursue the enquiry before I could ask mom about it. However, ” the guy I was talking to” through the helpline number asked me for my mother’s medical history. You see, he wasn’t a doctor, he was just the receptionist, so for him to confirm whether the hospital could help my mother, he needed her medical history to confirm with an actual doctor. I had told him that my mother was in Murang’a at the time, so it would really be a bother to have her travel all the way when she had no assurance that she could get the help she needed. And honestly, he really got me.
However, this also meant that I had to call my mom to ask for images of her medical records, and so I had to tell her about “my plan”, ready to do a lot of convincing if I had to. But contrary to my expectations, I didn’t have to. She was ready to try anywhere else. With the excruciating headaches she was having, she said was ready to try anywhere. “Handū ha ndūre ngirītīte Kīnyata,” as she put it–Kikuyu to mean instead of always trying to pursue help from Kenyatta Hospital.
After my mother sent images of her medical history, everything moved really fast from then on. I forwarded the images to the guy and within two hours or so, he confirmed that my mother could get help. He further advised that it was best for her to meet the hospital’s main surgeon, who is also the founder of the Hospital, Dr. F. Koech. Now the tricky part was that he was only available on Tuesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. When I received this information, it was on a Tuesday evening. That meant that if my mother was to make it to see him that Thursday at 10 (the much-desired outcome), she had to travel the following day. So we had to act fast, and I wasn’t sure such a long journey could be planned in such a short time. Either way, I called my brother and according to him, Thursday was the only option. (He had taken mom to KNH the previous day, and according to him, her state was an emergency).
So that evening he went home and together with my dad they made the necessary arrangements and my brother was to travel with my mom the following day. The plan was for them to come and spend the night at my place, Kaplong, which is a reasonably close distance to Eldoret. Either way, we still needed to wake up early the following day since it was still a 3-4 hour drive to Eldoret. I had not seen my mother for a while so when I saw her, I understood why my brother thought it was an emergency. Her eye and entire left face were so swollen that she looked nothing like my mother😞💔.
I couldn’t even get myself to look at her. I felt bad that she had been going to KNH from the time it was just a minor swelling up to the point where her face was literally deformed. What broke my heart the most was that all they had done on her last visit was tell her they would call. As if they hadn’t told her that before. And I felt I had failed her terribly for not seeing her often enough to know she needed a way out. But, she kept on saying not to worry because everything was happening as God had planned and I just could not fathom the faith in that woman. It was admirable, palpable even. And as we later found out throughout her treatment process, she was right again, it was all in God’s timing.
So on the 18th, Leroy’s dad, my brother, and I took my mother to the hospital…(to be continued in part two)
❤❤❤❤
Nyambura Macharia
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