• A family of seven has lost all hope. Doctors say all must have their legs amputated or continue to suffer.
• They have no money and appeal to well-wishers.
A family of seven in Inani area in Keumbu, Kisii is struggling with elephantiasis infections. The patients have thick legs and feet a condition that hinders them from doing work to fend for themselves.
@magatinews
Raphael Nyagaka was looking forward to a life in the army, travelling, marching around in a life of action and adventure.
It was not to be. At age 12, his feet and legs began to swell and thicken, they looked like an elephant’s feet. The skin was tough like an elephant’s hide.
He wept uncontrollably.
The condition got worse. It was painful.
Today, at age 24, Raphael can barely walk. He drags his gigantic feet and lower legs around his Inani Village in Kerera Nyaribari Chache in Kisii county. He is unable to tend to his needs.
His wife has left him. She was unable to bear the sight of her husband 's big, foul-smelling feet and legs.
Raphael is not alone. Six members of his immediate family, including his father, are suffering from elephantiasis.
Even his grandfather, Joseph Obonyo, now in his 80s, has struggled all his life with his gigantic legs.
He barely can barely lift his limbs and and it’s bad if there’s nobody to help him get into the house if it rains, or help him get to the outhouse.
If they are lucky, some good Samaritan will give them a ride in a wheelbarrow.
It infects the lymphatic system, which causes swelling. It also damages the lymph and the immune systems. Legs, arms, breasts and genitals may well, causing great discomfort and stigma. It is not contagious.
It is treatable with medication to kill most of the worms and reduce the swelling and pain; thereafter a tablet or two a year is needed. That's if it is caught early, In extreme cases, however, surgery may be necessary. There is no cure but it can be controlled.
The latest casualty was Nyagaka's niece, a flowering teenager who had to drop out of school because of the stigma. No one wanted lo look at her or be around her.
So she stays home. No more running in the open fields with her friends. They have all left her.
Now she wears a long skirt to hide her disfigurement as she limps along.
Nyagaka's feet bleed and the pain is intense.
Doctors at Kijabe Mission Hospital, where they first went for treatment, recommended amputations for all of them.
The down payment for each surgery is Sh500,000. They didn’t have the money and the prospect of amputation was terrifying.
Image: MAGATI OBEBO
So they are back in their village, basically immobilised and unable to work.
Church members in the village used to help but now because of Covid-19 the coffers of mercy have dried up.
“We have nowhere to turn,” Nyagaka said.
Doctors at the nearby Keumbu subcounty hospital said there’s no cure, only amputation for the worst cases.
Some family members are considering amputation but they don't have the money.
"It is just scary to have my feet cut off and to walk on metal,” Nyagaka saids but that may be the only option if they can get the money.
He remembers how it started. He was trekking to school one day in 2007 when he felt some numbness in his legs.
Later there was excruciating pain and swelling his feet and lower leg.
"I didn't understand what I was going through. It wasn't something a youth like me would even think about.”
He could barely walk the five kilometres to the nearby primary school. Then it got worse. There was stigma, other pupils shunned him.
Today Nyagaka sticks to the farm with his other siblings. It does appear the family tree is jinxed, whatever the doctors say.
"My dad, grandfather, three brothers and a sister are already in the advanced stages of the disease,” he told the Star.
Every penny the family gets is used to buy painkillers, said Morris Obonyo, Nyagaka 's father who is also sick.
Obonyo doesn’t understand how his entire family seems to have been singled out.
God appears to have gone away and now dark clouds rain bad luck on him and his family, he said.
"This disease just stole its way in and settled, giving us no breathing space,” Obonyo said.
He appealed for help from well-wishers. No family member receives any stipend for their disability.
Local chiefs are yet to forward their names to government agencies for assistance," he said.
"We are on our own but somehow God is seeing us through," Obonyo said.
Norah Obonyo, Morris’s mother, told the Star her son and his children's condition have turned her into their servant. She is still healthy.
She said she gave birth to Morris in 1962 and he was healthy. Little did she imagine life would turn this ugly.
"I have to fetch water for them, dig for them and sometimes even cook for them, it is not easy," she said
The family house leaks and there’s no money for repairs.
Norah said her eldest son was walking from a Christmas festivity at Keumbu when his feet begun to swell, never to recover.
He was carried home by fellow church members.
Nothing has helped.
"The doctors have given up too, we are resigned to our fate," Obonyo said.
Keumbu Public Health director Florence Tirimba says there are three similar cases in the same village and they have begun medical investigations.
"We came to check on the Obonyo family but as we did it, other cases were emerging from the shadows,” she said.
Fumigation to kill mosquitoes is also necessary.
But that’s small comfort for the Obonyo family.
(Edited by V. Graham)