Wednesday, July 16: Another Not-Too-Productive Day

Our great start with Jeff is in danger of being eclipsed by a less effective second week. Today, we started at 8:30 with a quick trip to Surrey High School where we found one of our children missing. We will catch up with her later. We hit two more schools, then we had to break.

I came up with a great idea a few days ago. I decided that perhaps my CMT and eye symptoms could be the result of some tropical disease. So where better to be checked for tropical diseases than in Uganda, home of the most strands of malaria in the world. Philip told me about a place called The Surgery where he said he took his family. I sent Vincent and Michael there for treatment a few times. So I asked Vincent to make an appointment for me. The time they had was 10:40.

We started to make our way across Kampala around 10:00. Traffic was light, so we got there early - about 10:15. The waiting room was filled with a mix of Ugandans and European tourists. I filled out an information card and we took a seat. There was a sign on the wall urging people who were leaving Uganda to take a malaria test. It said “why become a guinea pig for a group of medical students back home?” Sounded like my kind of place!

We waited until a few minutes past 11:00. Dr. Stockley called my name and Lisa and I started back. He directed us down stairs, then down more stairs, then down a hall to a consultation room. Dr. Stockley was a little older than me, not quite as tall, and 50 pounds lighter. He was very British and very quick-witted. He pointed to a desk and told us to take seats. A cute young medical student sat behind the desk. “She’ll ask you all my questions,” said the doctor as he flew out of the room.

The young woman did a very thorough history of my CMT and eye issues, but she was still working on it when Dr. Stockley came back in. He went back through everything and continued making notes on an index card. He told me to move to the examining table. He moved my neck a bit and checked my back. He tried to look in my eyes, but he said his equipment wasn’t good enough to see anything at all. Then he told me to get a blood sample and come back in an hour or two. Lisa and I walked up one of the flights of stairs and I went alone into the lab.

A middle-aged Ugandan woman started slapping my arms and looking for a vein. I told her I was a difficult stick and she found out why: the nice, firm vein rolled away as soon as she tried to stick it. Didn’t slow her down, however. She dug deeper and deeper into my arm before declaring that vein impossible. She moved to the back of my other hand and immediately started to dig. I believe the needle would have been visible in my palm if I had thought to look. In any event, she finally drove the needle through the vein. She put pressure on the wound at once. “I hope it won’t balloon,” she whispered.

The other tech got out a syringe and went after a different vein in my hand. She actually drew the blood out with the syringe. Her way wasn’t much fun, but it was soon over!

I called Vincent and he said they were close by. We paid about $40 for the visit and moved down the hill to wait for the van.

Since we would need to go back in a short time, it didn’t make sense to go chasing kids. And in any event, Lisa had a speaking engagement tonight so she needed food. So we went to Garden City, which, as luck would have it, is exactly where they had been when I called. We walked up to the Food Court and were descended upon by food hawkers. There have always been hawkers at the various stalls. They would try to give you a menu, then tell you about the wonderful food there. Each hawker would stay near the restaurant employing him, but today, they were all waiting to pounce as soon as we cleared the door!

After a few minutes, I settled on the mixed grill. I received small portions of grilled chicken, lamb, and beef. I gave most of my rice to Vincent and I didn’t eat the chips. But the protein was great! Everyone seemed to enjoy their food.

We were back at The Surgery at 1:30. We were told to take seats. Dr. Stockley came out of the back and the receptionist started to complain about something electrical not working. Dr. Stockley got down on the floor and started pulling wires. He had an electrician in tow, but he simply stood back and let Dr. Stockley do his thing. He thought he’d worked it out and walked out explaining what he’d done to the electrician. He hardly cleared the door when he came back, still explaining to the electrician. This time, both got on the ground beneath the receptionist’s desk. In a few minutes, they came up.

After Dr. Stockley left again, I went up and asked if the test had been completed. “He just picked it up, sir,” said the receptionist. Before I could settle back in my chair, Dr. Stockley called us back. He took us back to the consulting room where we’d met earlier. He showed me the results of the blood test. Nothing at all showed up. He basically said the good news is it’s only CMT and the bad news is it’s CMT! There’s nothing to be done for it. Like the Neurologists in Tennessee, he said the eyes couldn’t be related, but he had no idea what that was about. He said he lacked the background to even hazard a guess, that I would need to rely on my neurologist for that. “You’re not the first person to come to me hoping to find a tropical explanation for a non-tropical medical problem. But given enough time, those guys in the States are pretty good. They’ll eventually figure it out, even if it’s something odd.”

We spent another half-hour with the doctor talking about Uganda and the challenges of doing church work here. Dr. Stockley has a healthy skepticism about Ugandan run NGO’s coming from 28 years in Uganda watching frauds multiply everywhere. He was a delightful man and he said he hoped I would drop through when I came in over Christmas.

I must say I was disappointed. I was hoping he could diagnose something rare with these exact symptoms, something easily cured with no lasting effects. He was pretty much my last hope of that. Now, we’ll face the slow progression of CMT and whatever the eye issue is with nothing to do but treat symptoms.

The team was incredibly patient with me again today. They shopped while I was seeing the doctor, but they waited patiently while I went back. Vincent had a parking spot in the shade. We climbed into the van and took off to see more children!

.We met Nansubuga Joan (Brett) at Winterland Academy. This is Pastor Elliot’s daughter. We were glad to see her in the program even though her father has left the EPC. From there, we drove to Mutungo Central Primary School and saw Mutebi Innocent (Rick and Vicki). Yes, he is a boy! He was so excited to see us he could barely talk.

We visited three more schools and found happy children who were doing well or trying harder. Then we went to Bweyogerere Secondary School. We were there to see Nakalyango Unia (New Beginning). There was a large sign from the Muslim Student’s Association at the front desk. We parked while Michael went to the administration office. Students began to pass. All the boys wore head covers. All the girls were completely covered from head to toe. The uniform for girls was a flowing ground-length gown with the school’s name on the right front.

Unia wouldn’t say anything about the school, but when I told her I wanted to take a picture for her sponsor, she threw her head wrap in the dirt and had me take the picture with her bear-headed. She seemed troubled by it all.

As soon as we pulled away, I asked Vincent why the girl was in a place that made Christians cover up. He said the father chose it for her. As I probed, I found that I had denied boarding school for this girl in trying to save the sponsors some money. The father had to find the cheapest school he could and this was it. I told Vincent to move her. We will have a policy of using no Muslim schools that are this strict in the future. We’ll move Unia after the fall term.

We picked up one more child at a nearby primary, then headed for the church. Lisa was supposed to help prepare for Women’s Night at 3:00. We called and they said for her to keep working. Now it was 4:00 so we headed for the church. The building was full of women.

Lisa will have to describe this for you. I wasn’t allowed to watch except for the matoki peeling contest. Lisa, Danielle, and Angela were all dressed in beautiful African dresses. That’s all I saw!

David and I went to the tiny office with a group that grew to about 15 men. We had a 1.5 hour open discussion time. Most of the time was spent talking about money issues. It required us to be on our toes!!

Everything was finished by 8:00.David and I made a lot of pictures of groups of ladies. Finally, I herded everyone into the van and Vincent brought us home.
All but David met for “dinner” an hour later. We turned in our order as we entered the property, but we still waited a full 30 minutes for our food! I had cream of mushroom soup once again. This time, I ordered chapatti (a fried Indian bread) instead of toast!