The hospice team

This is Jara, an 8 year old girl who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes several months ago and has been living at the hospital in order to get the hang of her new diet and insulin injections.  Her family lives outside of Koutiala and is either unable or unwilling to come to the hospital to be with her.  Brett's house worker Jeremy is a christian and offered to take Jara into his home like one of his own children.  This is even more amazing because of the fact that he hardly has enough money to take care of his own children.

This is Jara's traveling crew getting ready to leave for Jeremy's house, including two of the kids being treated for leukemia. These kids become like siblings after being in the hospital together for so long.

This is Jeremy's family when Jara arrived.  You can see the matriarch of the family in the center.  Brett and Sheri recently helped them with the funds to buy their new house.

Another happy baby in a sling!

This is Kadia using her blue potty for her chemotherapy contaminated urine.  It is placed into a special container to be disposed of later.

A typical makeshift kitchen for families staying at the hospital.  They will eat out of a communal bowl and use their hands.

A traffic jam in Koutiala!

We made a trip to a village outside of Koutiala to see Mami, a teenage girl with an untreatable bone cancer (osteosarcoma).  Her tumor is in the pelvis and was unable to be resected at diagnosis due to its size and location.  Radiation therapy does not exist anywhere in Mali and patients would not be able to pay to travel even if it was.  We divided out some steroid doses for her, which will hopefully decrease her swelling.  We also gave her some injectable doses of pain medicine.  Jara has been using lots of oral pain meds, but as a typical Malian she tries to hide the severity of her symptoms.  I let Mami and her mother know that I agreed that her cancer is not curable and the we should focus on treating her symptoms and keeping her comfortable.  The Malian pastor on our team prayed with the family in Bambara (traditional language) prior to us heading back to the hospital.

A beautiful girl!

Our hospice team: Malian pastor, 2 pediatric nurses, and myself.

The chalkboard from the school across the street from Mami's house.  Notice the dirt floors and no chairs in the room.

School building.

Brett and Sheri's local grocery store.

Bogolan clothe artwork using mud and parts of tree for the coloring and designs.

This shows the leaves of the tree turning into a stew that will ultimately be used for the green dyes.

You can see the bark in the background that used for brown and red dyes.

A local bogolan artisan.

Bala is wearing a traditional leather token around his neck that is supposed to ward off bad spirits.

The urine collection bucket for kids getting chemotherapy.

At the hospital.