There are times in life when we all feel helpless. It may be due to the stress of school or work, the inability to overcome addition, or the tragic loss of a loved one. For me, I most recently experienced these feelings when I traveled to Masindi, Uganda as part of a medical initiative to provide healthcare to an area which currently lacks any system of care comparable to what we are privileged to in the United Sates. In fact, many Ugandans will go through their entire lives without ever visiting a healthcare facility or receiving any sort of medical treatment. After treating over 1100 patients in 4 days, there are countless illnesses and life stories that I could recall to depict the unfathomably difficult circumstances in which the Ugandan people find themselves. However, the case of one 6-year-old boy, in particular, struck me in a way which I will never forget.

I met this young boy on the fourth and final day of clinic. He was not one of the 250 patients that we had pre-registered that morning to receive care. Rather, he was thrust into the hands of fellow student Day Burruss by his friends who were playing outside. At first she wasn’t sure what to make of the boy. She thought maybe they were just playing and were interested in the mazungo (meaning “white people”) who were visiting their town. Many of them had not seen a mazungo before our trip. But as she took a closer look, she noticed something just wasn’t right. She called me over and we began to examine the young boy, who at this time wasn’t talking and looked very scared and unsure of his surroundings.

We first took his temperature and found it to be 104.5 degrees, a temperature that surely would have warranted a visit to the pediatrician or possibly the emergency room in the United States. We immediately got some children’s Tylenol from our make-shift pharmacy and gave him a dose to help lower his temperature. As we took his vital signs, we found that his heart was racing at an astounding, irregular rate. His lungs had crackles on both sides, a pretty good indicator of pneumonia among other things. His lymph nodes were swollen in his face and his abdomen was distended and his liver was enlarged. By now we had realized that this was not a child playing with his friends who accidentally ended up in our clinic. Rather his friends, many of whom were peering in at us through the metal bars on the windows, realized that we were there to help sick people, and had pushed him into our clinic because they recognized that he needed help.

As we fed him fluids and oral rehydration salts, we began trying to communicate to the boy through a translator. We eventually found out that his 7-year-old sister was also there with him. They had both been at school that day, to which they walked 2 miles both ways in the 90 degree heat from their home. He had been sick for several days, but his mother couldn’t help them because she too was home sick with malaria. Cody Carpenter, the only pediatrician who was with us, was able to examine the boy and agreed with our assessment that he most likely had the Mumps and an associated pneumonia, which would normally warrant close monitoring and possibly hospitalization. However, no such facilities or such high level of care was available in Masindi.

I spent the next hour or so with the boy, trying to reassure him and his sister that we would do our best to help them and going over the various possibilities in my head. Did we have the medicines to help him? What could I do to make sure they would get home safe? How could we convey to the mom what was wrong and how important his treatment was? As dusk set upon us and the clinic was packed up, I came to the tragic realization that there wasn’t much more I could do to help. It was not safe for us to be out past dark and we had no idea where the child lived or the conditions there. So, ultimately, we ended up giving the boy 2 medications to treat his infection and the symptoms. The next 10 minutes were spent explaining to his 7-year-old sister the course of treatment in hopes that she might be able to relay the information to their ailing mother.

After some group pictures and loading the vans, we began to leave down the same bumpy, dirt road we arrived on 10 hours earlier. As I looked out the window, I noticed the two siblings holding hands walking down another dirt path. They were carrying a couple school books and the medications and water bottles we gave them. After feeling like we had helped so many people on my short trip to Uganda, this was truly a shocking realization for me. It was one of the most difficult feelings to know that this sick boy had a 2 mile walk home in the dark with his sister. I kept wondering about what kind of home he had to go to. Did he even have a bed or a safe place to sleep? Would he be able to get the fresh water or nutrients he would need for his body to fight the infection? And the most difficult question, which I will likely never know the answer to, will he survive another week?

As I continue to struggle with the feelings of helplessness and sadness I felt at that moment, I have tried to sift through the experiences and the people I met in Masindi: the gracious hosts of the church, the hard-working translators who helped us 10 hours per day with little food or water, and the incredible patients who will never know the impact they had on my life and my outlook. I first decided to go to Uganda because I like to travel and I wanted to gain more experience for the medical education. Now that I have returned, I realize that I gained so much more than I could have ever imagined. In addition to the pain, sorrow and harsh conditions there, I witnessed an unparalleled compassion, humility, love, and generosity that will forever remain in my heart and soul.

Some might wonder how I can feel helpless when we did so much good and helped so many people during our short stay in Masindi. I do not take for granted the amount of aid we were able to provide. But rather I wanted to tell this story because of the humbling impact it has had on me. It reminds me that while we were able to do so much good, our mission is by no means complete. I get excited thinking about the future when I might be able to return to Masindi, and I hope that others will be inspired to help in whatever ways they can.

As we continue to experience difficult economic times and change here at home, we must remember that there are people so much worse off than us. We must recognize and be thankful for the values that are truly important in life: love, compassion, and generosity. As I readjust back to the stressful life of a medical student, I remember the young boy whose face is engrained in my memory, and I am overcome by emotion. I can take solace only in the fact that we gave him a chance and hope that God will take care of the rest.

By now, I’m pretty sure that Masindi and the surrounding area knows me as the girl who hands out glasses. And as gratifying as it may seem to be able to fix someone’s eyesight almost instantaneously, it did not fulfill me in the way I had anticipated. The reaction and the grin from ear to ear began to feel like a cliché. Isolated from the action, I felt as though I was merely putting a Band-Aid on a cut. How do you compare removing a lipoma from a man’s backside or draining an abscess to putting a pair of glasses on someone? I tried really hard to concentrate on my mission and focus on what was significant and real, but I couldn’t help but subscribe to the phrase, “No guts, no glory!”

I just couldn’t comprehend why these people traveled from distant places, camped out overnight to secure a spot in line, and went through the anxiety of being treated by a stranger – all this trouble for a pair of glasses? Frankly, the anecdotal, “oh, it means so much to them that they can show off their glasses…” didn’t suffice as an explanation to me either. Although I understand the dignity and pride that comes with owning something new, the fact that they were showing off the glasses – glasses that we didn’t have enough to go around – gave me the impression of vanity and seemed unfair.

I broke the monotony of my task by learning Runyoro, the Bantu language, and practicing on the patients and anyone who would listen. So finally, the glasses ran out. I was relieved of my duties and I would rotate to triage. I thought, “Yes! I can get a little more action!” But when I’d record patient histories – eye problems, needs glasses, trouble reading, etc. – I’d be reminded of the questions I took issue with and my heart would feel a little tug knowing that they wouldn’t get the spectacles they were seeking. Unfortunately, the number of villagers was mutually exclusive to the prized possessions that took shape in the form of glasses we rationed for the day.
Out of curiosity and the nagging feeling on my heart (no, it wasn’t “heart pains”), I asked George, my translator, what the big deal about the glasses were. Perhaps he would help me grasp the concept behind the incessant need. He explained that they wanted the glasses to be able to read the Bible. This resonated with me.
Beyond the practicality of being able to see clearly and the excitement of receiving something new, these people wanted to be closer to God. You see (no pun intended), the Bishop instructs his congregation to read the Bible. Reading the Bible, or the concept thereof, represents knowing and being closer to God. They may not know or fully grasp what they are reading or entirely understand the words, but the fact that they can clearly see the words and better go through the motions of reading fulfills their commitment to being Christians.

And to that end, I found out that we have more in common with these people than initially thought. Why did we travel across the ocean, halfway across the globe, sleep overnight on two flights, raise money, get vaccinated and go through all the trouble to get to Uganda and forgo a spring break poolside? It is so that we may become that much closer to God and strengthen our faith.

We may not know or fully grasp entirely what we are doing, feel insufficient in our medical knowledge and perhaps at times we are just going through the motions in the hope that we are getting it right. But the big picture here is that we are becoming closer to God. And I think, in a stunningly beautiful convergence, that we all will get a new pair of glasses on this trip. And that is a fantastic realization.

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