“Erymas would like to go to school and complete his high school education,” shares our medical partner, African Mission Healthcare Foundation (AMHF). “If he is able, he would like to go to technical school and become a taxi or bus driver.”
This dream has recently been jeopardized for fourteen-year-old Erymas by a bone infection that he has contracted in his tibia. This condition, known as osteomyelitis, occurs when an infection spreads to a bone from nearby tissue or via the bloodstream, or originates in an injured bone itself.
For Erymas, the infection’s symptoms began as a “a scaly itchy spot on his lower right leg,” reports AMHF. “Subsequently the leg began to swell and there appeared drainage of pus from several open sores.” Although his family obtained medication from a local clinic, Erymas’s tibia has only gotten worse. His leg is now swollen with liquid, making it difficult for him to move. This means he is no longer able to help his family with their livelihood of subsistence farming.
If left untreated, Erymas’s infection could spread to other parts of his leg, cause him to develop skin cancer, or even lead to bone death—meaning his leg would have to be amputated.
To avoid these dangers, Erymas needs to undergo surgery to remove the infected bone and tissue close to his tibia, which will stop it from spreading to other parts of his leg. However, Erymas’s parents are unable to pay for this operation on top of providing for the basic needs of their eight children.
For $535, Erymas will have his operation, and receive a week-long hospital stay and physiotherapy to recover from the surgery.
“When the bone heals, Ermyas should be able to walk without assistance and live a normal life,” adds AMHF.
