19-year-old with strange condition

The stench of rotting flesh fills the air at the verandah of emergency ward at Gulu Regional Referral Hospital.

A swarm of flies hovers over a green kitenge spread over a young patient who lies helpless and seemingly in deep pain as she gasps for breath. An elderly woman seated nearby looks on.

Anono, a resident of Teduka Village, Minakulu Sub-county in Oyam District, has been unable to move for the past seven months due to a strange disease that attacked her right limb in January this year.

The strange disease has left her with an unusually swollen right limb that has burst open, dripping thick pus and rotting away.

Aidah Acola, 68, mother to ailing Brenda Anono, 19, briefly explains her daughter’s condition.

How it started
Speaking to Daily Monitor on Tuesday, Acola said her daughter who had just been married for one year got a small swelling on her knee but she wasn’t bothered by it since it wasn’t life threatening.

However, two months later, the small swelling started increasing in size and becoming painful. Acola adds that when they sought medical attention, the doctors at Oyam Hospital failed to diagnose it.

“In the second month, she was feeling immense pain and the swelling had become bigger. When we failed to get medical treatment at Oyam Hospital, we were told to go to St Mary’s Hospital Lacor in April. We spent four days in Lacor, before moving back home because we had no money,” Acola explains.

“My daughter could no longer stay at her husband’s place because the strange swelling started oozing pus.She returned to my home for other alternatives,” adds Acola.

The family started using traditional herbs and consulting witchdoctors, believing that the strange disease that attacked her daughter could be a result of witchcraft.

“In the last four months, we used all kinds of herbs and visited many witchdoctors, but the condition only worsened. We feared the cost of treatment at the hospital since we were poor and thought we would find solutions in a traditional way,” she adds.

Being a widow with four children, Acola says she can no longer meet her daughter’s medical bills.
Anono, who spoke with difficulty, says she feels pain that and she is uncomfortable because of the bad odour emitted from the open, rotting flesh.

Jackline Kidden, the nursing officer in-charge of the emergency ward where Anono was admitted, said doctors were still carrying out medical tests on the patient to examine what the cause of the disease was.

However, she suggested that the disease could be wet gangrene, a condition caused by insufficient supply of blood after an injury, or it could also be cancer.

“We are carrying out tests to see her liver and blood grouping. We shall then surrender the results to the specialists for recommendation,” says Kidden.

About wet gangrene
If it is wet Gangrene, here is what you should know. Wet Gangrene (also sometimes termed “moist” gangrene is the most dangerous type of gangrene because if it is left untreated, the patient usually develops sepsis and dies within a few hours or days.

Wet gangrene results from an untreated (or inadequately treated) infection in the body where the local blood supply has been reduced or cut off by tissue swelling, gas production in tissue, bacterial toxins, or all of these factors in combination.

Early stages of wet gangrene may include signs of infection, pain with swelling, a reddish skin colour.

Treatment
According to wikipedia, the method of treatment is determined by the location of affected tissue and extent of tissue loss. The best treatment for gangrene is revascularisation (restoration of blood flow) of the afflicted organ, which can reverse some of the effects of necrosis and allow healing.

how you can help
To help Brenda Anono, one can reach out on these phone numbers belonging to Mr Moris Obong, husband to the patient; 0782021611, and 078075854.