Kadiatu Sesay’s father is uneducated and tries to earn a living breaking granite rocks into gravel with a hammer. At some point as a toddler, Kadiatu accidentally swallowed liquid lye, an ingredient used to make laundry soap, a process women sometimes do here in Sierra Leone, so they can sell the soap at the market to supplement family income. When Kadiatu was first brought to me in January 2013, I was perplexed to see this little girl who had an old and dirty piece of nylon fishing line coming out of her nose and tied around one ear, and a tube coming out of an infected-sore area of her stomach. She looked to be about four-years-old, and was very defensive, not letting anyone touch her or her implants. Her father had a beat-up paper document relating to Kadiatu from the Emergency for War Victims Hospital, an Italian-based organization still functioning here, 12 years after the end of Sierra Leone’s civil war. Looking at the father’s thick, over-worked hands, and hearing how he did not have enough funds to take his daughter on the considerable journey across the Freetown peninsula to the hospital, I knew we had to help. I asked another Africa Surgery helper, Mohamed Fenton, to take charge of returning Kadiatu to the Emergency Hospital where he found out that she would have to make regular bi-weekly visits.
After I returned to New Jersey, Africa Surgery continued to fund the transport and feeding costs for these regular visits of Kadaitu, her mother, and Mr. Fenton. It wasn’t until this November that I finally joined them on a visit and learned the cause of Kadiatu’s problem. I also learned that Kadiatu’s treatment involved procedures where progressively thicker tubes are being inserted down her constricted esophagus, stretching it larger, while guided by the fish line, and that the tube into her stomach is for supplemental feeding, which her mother has been instructed to use, being regularly provided with the special food. I was surprised to see two other children there with the same condition, waiting for their bi-weekly treatment.
Kadaitu, who now looks clean and smiles a lot, has progressed to the point where she can eat some solid food normally and can be tickled by the nurses. But it might be as much as another year before here fish line and feeding tube can finally be removed.
Tom Johnson, Jr.
Nov. 25, 2013