Can you imagine how you would feel if eating solid food caused you pain? Until two years ago, 12 year old Motu had no major health problems. Then, she started having difficulty eating solid foods. She started vomiting at night and losing weight.
Concerned about the progression of these symptoms, Motu and her parents started traveling from place to place looking for medical treatment. Her providers diagnosed her with achalasia, a malfunction of the lower esophageal muscle that prevents food from moving from the throat to the stomach normally.
Motu’s achalasia currently causes her to vomit frequently and gives her pain in her chest. In spite of these hardships, she has still been attending school. Her family is very poor, but they have worked hard to find treatment for Motu. Motu’s providers at Africa Mission Healthcare Foundation in Ethiopia plan to surgically correct her achalasia with a procedure called a Heller myotomy. The procedure costs $800, far out of reach for Motu’s family. But with our help, she will have less pain, vomit less frequently, and, most importantly, eat normally again.