Joan is a farmer and a mother from Rukungiri district in southwest Uganda. She is married and is a mother of six, with two sons, both studying in school, and four daughters, all of whom are married and small-scale farmers. She managed to complete seventh grade in primary school but never proceeded due to a lack of money for school fees. Joan and her husband do farming and grow food crops for home consumption, but often sell off the surplus to generate an income for their family.
Five years ago, Joan began to experience troubling symptoms, including a lot of pain; she can’t turn her head sideways; she feels congested with difficulty breathing; she gets fatigued easily and has shortness of breath whenever she lies down to sleep. She first went to Kisiizi hospital, where she was diagnosed and was asked to first pay for her surgery, which she couldn’t raise, but when she was oriented about a surgical support program, she decided to come to see if she could be supported. She was diagnosed with a goiter and needs surgery to prevent her symptoms from getting worse.
Our medical partner, African Mission Healthcare, is helping Joan receive treatment. She is scheduled to undergo a thyroidectomy on March 29th at our medical partner’s care center. Surgeons will remove all or part of her thyroid gland. This procedure will cost $252, and she and her family need help raising money.
Joan says, “I am really in deep pain, but I hope to get healed once I receive this surgery.”
