Many of you remember the remarkable story of little Esther from Arusha, Tanzania who was terribly burned on her legs in a fire and was struggling with the scar tissue and lingering effects of that horrible accident. In the summer of 2013 we had a team visiting us from Springfield, MO and unbeknown to any of us that team had a sponsor Dr. Carla Kester who was also a very experienced plastic surgeon. Dr. Carla was able to operate on Esther and do a very successful skin graft that has greatly enhanced the quality of life for Esther. While most of our 25,000 patients at our Arusha medical clinic are suffering from the typical tropical diseases like malaria, typhoid, and parasites, we are also seeing more cases of an unusual and dramatic nature.
This past month we had a young boy rushed to our clinic who had severed the artery in his wrist and was in danger of bleeding to death. Dr. Byemba our clinic director is also a skilled surgeon and he was able to immediately repair the artery and to save the young man's life. As important as this initial operation was Dr. Byemba noticed the severe damage around the wrist area of this young man and desired to do a skin graft to help not only with cosmetics but also to promote the healing process. Dr. Byemba was not formally trained in plastic surgery but he had watched and learned from Dr. Carla in 2013. Using that skilled learned from our visitor he was able to do a beautiful job repairing the damage to this boy's wrist. When you treat thousands of patients each month the typical day can be pretty repetitive, however life is never dull at our Arusha Clinic where Dr. Byemba and his staff are faced with new challenges on a regular basis.