On the verge of Perfection
Having been born without anal passage and constricted intestines, Roy’s recovery is being celebrated by the Bancroft family. Julius Mor walks us through the event.
Anne Wambui, a soft-spoken budding nutritionist and Anderson, a businessman, had a lot going for them after they wedded in 2006. One of which, was the first signs of a pregnancy that was received with excitement.
The pregnancy was normal: ultrasound scans did not pick any anomaly, heartbeat rate of the foetus was right to a fault, no smudges or odd shape with the brain. Neither did Anne miss her fair share of morning sicknesses. Apart from manageable blood pressure, nothing came in to prick her suspicion.
The impending Christmas holiday was on everybody’s lips when labour pains gripped Anne on a sunny afternoon. A half-hour drive aboard a taxi saw her check into hospital and admitted. A few-hours later, Roy was born through Caesarean section and whisked to paediatric exam room. Roy passed all but one: the anal opening was missing.
The feeling is familiar: a white-clad scrubbed-looking nurse delivers a devastating medical report and you feel like the bottom has been yanked from under your feet, then the free fall. Not Anne. She took it well in stride … at least till later when time for going home came, with a flat tummy but empty handed.
As soon as she hit the side-walk to board a taxi, home-bound, her mind was filled with images of her son, cute but helpless. A son she had left behind in a strange hospital room. She could not shake off the feeling she was betraying her son and therefore herself. At that time nothing made sense. Not the crowded highway, not the grid-locked mid-morning traffic. All she wanted was to reach home. And pray.
At home, her heart sunk even further when she saw her neighbours in the four-apartment block, gathered a few meters from the main gate to welcome her home. She quickly said a weak ‘hello’ and proceeded fast past them onto the second floor of the flat where she lives, to avoid the question that would have resonated the devastating truth.
On entering her apartment, she went straight to the one thing she sought most —the Bible. “God is your refuge… trust in Him…. I will never forsake you’, says the Lord”. The words jumped off Psalm 91 falling on Anne’s heart soothing it like butter.
Goaded by the soaring bills, Anne had left the newborn alone at the mercy of doctors and nurses whose confidence was waning—something that drove her up the wall. Thereafter, she managed to still herself and seek a second opinion from a children’s hospital. There a doctor stirred some hope. Racing against time. Roy was promptly transferred to the new hospital where he underwent his first operation in a bid to give him another lease of life.
The operation was successful and the 27-year-old first-time mother thought her problems were over. But only for
so long. ’He became very weak from the operation and vomited blood and all the milk I had breastfed him.’ Anne said adding that it terribly worried her.
Anderson, her husband had not quite grasped the gravity of it all. When he finally got it, he jumped to Anne’s aid and asked to stay with his son in the recuperating ward—a dedication that gave Anne the biggest rest ever. ‘He would spend the night with Roy and I would relieve him for a few hours in the morning when he would dash
home, take a shower, grab a quick breakfast and go back to the hospital.* she recounts, ‘He went back to duty after Roy stabilized.’
Anne appreciates the hospital staff that went the extra mile for Roy’s sake. She remembers a particular nurse who offered to be present throughout the entire operation’s tense atmosphere and cluttering efficiency amid drawn faces. Days later, the nurse personally took Roy back to the theatre when his condition worsened.
His current paediatrician explains that ‘A passage was created from the intestines and an anal passage carved out.’
In less than two years. Roy has endured five operations including an unavoidable circumcision as a result of urinary infection that crept into his system during the corrective surgeries that cost KES 1.2 million.
Just how has she managed? Anne says it is about family and friends and church colleagues. She says her husband provided a unique tear towel in a way nobody else could. She also wonders how she could have gotten by without her elder sister, Phyllis, who saw to the general running of things: her mother in-law who called so very often: and Sarah, an orphan who always showed up to cheer her up with prayer: and the team that held faith-fervent sessions. The support was humbling.
Sun-blasted air wheezed outside the cool living room. Engines buzzed lazily in late afternoon traffic a hundred meters away. As I sat next to my co-reporter Liz. I realized before us was a boy who had fought and won a big war like many unsung warriors of the world (though he is yet to develop sphincter muscles to toilet-training level), and a mother who had earned every letter of her title. Her easy smile affirms the doctors’ assurance that Roy’s digestive system is on the verge of perfection.
Echoing the vulnerability of mankind. Anne Anderson took as back to how much effort she had invested into her first pregnancy: eating right, relentless exercising, reading every literature remotely touching on expectancy and grabbing every opportunity to rest. Like most second and third-time mothers, she relaxed the rules during her second pregnancy. Roy now has a five-months-old brother, Ron Cameron, whose arrival was thankfully less dramatic.
Roy’s condition is not a common one. However, research shows that males are more prone to congenital and post natal complications than females. It is mostly considered as hereditary.
END: PG21/27-28