Nine-month-old Desire likes playing and being carried around; she is a very active young girl from Uganda. Desire started crawling at six-months-old which is when she accidentally crawled into a pan, and hot milk poured on her legs. She recovered from the burns but sustained a contracture on her knee, a tightening of the tissue that makes it hard for her to use her legs. Her mother now worries that her daughter won’t learn to walk.
Agnes and Frank, Desires’ parents, are farmers. In his free time, Frank coaches a local soccer team but he and his wife cannot afford to pay for the burns their daughter experienced months ago.
When Agnes learned about the visiting orthopedic surgeons through Watsi’s medical partner, the Kellermann Foundation, she brought Desire in for screening to see if Desire could be helped. Agnes, Desire’s mother, is hopeful and looks forward to her daughter walking.
With $351, Desire will undergo surgery to release the contracture so that she once again has full range of motion.
“I would love to thank everyone who is supporting health care for my baby. She has difficulty crawling, though my hope is that she will crawl and be able to walk afterwards. This is a miracle I have been praying for,” Agnes said.