Gladys Awaits Fate: The Blood Clot In Her Brain, #SomeoneSaveGladys
When pain and suffering cannot describe the pain she is going through.
Despite being an adult, she now depends on her mother to provide, care, feed and clean her.
Meet 26 year old Gladys Chepleting, who for one year now, cannot in the least eat solid food, but rather depends on her mother Leah Leitabir Kapericho to feed her using tea, milk, porridge and water, through a Nasal Gastric Tube (NGT). This is a pipe inserted into her nostrils to ensure Chepleting has something in her stomach to keep her going.
As the sun rises early in the morning and sets in the evening, mother Leah wakes up as early as 5 am to prepare tea for her daughter and immediately embark on cleaning her soiled clothes and body.
At 10.00 am when porridge is ready, Chepleting with the assistance of her mother is brought out of their ramshackle house to at least get fresh air on a cool sunny day. At this time she is given porridge then later at noon, Chepleting is fed on milk. At 4.00 pm, tea is prepared and after feeding, she is taken back to the house as darkness approaches. Later in the night, Leah gives her daughter milk as dinner.
This has been ongoing for the last one year, and according to Leah (65), with time she will not be able to fend to her sickly daughter, given the attention Chepleting requires.
According to her mother, Chepleting is no longer able to walk, feed and answer to the call of nature.
What began as an on and off headache eight years ago gradually turned Chepleting into becoming epileptic, thus dropping out of school in standard six.
As the situation became more complicated, the family sort treatment and were referred to Eldoret’s Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) on April 4, 2014, where a radiology investigations was done. Results from a CT scan of the head established that Chepleting had a blood clot on the left side of the brain.
According to the family, 3,000,000 shillings is now required by MTRH to carry out a surgery to remove the clot. This for them is a pipe dream as the family is now left with only 3.5 acres of land.
This is where they plant maize and beans to sustain their living.
Though Chepleting was discharged two days later, her health has continued to deteriorate day in, day out. This has become a challenge to her mother, and her sixth-born son Peter Rutto who is now a second year student undertaking undergraduate studies at Moi University.
Rutto’s nine other siblings were not able to go to school and merely eke a living, a situation that has complicated the family’s desire to ensure Chepleting gets health care.
Complicating matters is the fact that the family of Kapkerich lost their only breadwinner Kipruto Leitabir , their father, who was hit by a car during the 2013 general elections campaigns. He succumbed to the injuries.
Chepleting is a mother of three, an eight year old boy, and two girls aged six and one and a half, and according to records from MTRH, Chepleting has a history of being an epileptic patient for eight years now. She was referred to MTRH from Nandi Hills Sub County Hospital.
Coupled with the long distance from their humble home in Taptengelei village in the rural interior of Tindiret Constituency and lack of a means of transport, Chepleting’s requires close medical checkup, a fact that the family cannot sustain. Donkeys are the only source of transport to the nearest shopping centre, Taptengelei.
The GNT is supposed to be changed on a monthly basis, and travelling to Eldoret to get services at MTRCH which is 200kms away is not only costly, but for a family that struggles to eat a meal per day, priorities further complicate their situation. The nearest health Centre is in Maraba which is 60kms away, with no qualified doctors to take care of Chepleting’s requirement. Mother Leah depends on a grinder to crash maize into flour, an exercise that lasts two hours to get finer flour for the family to have a meal.
Chepleting’s brother Rutto has now had to stop his studies at Moi, prompted by the fact that her ageing mother is already overburdened to take care of herself, her daughter and her grandchildren.
Rutto says though he has volunteered at the University’s library for four years now, nothing fruitful has been forthcoming. He says he expected the institution to absorb him and give him an employment to enable him complete his studies and at least provide for their family.
Rutto and the family have now called for a special medical appeal to raise the three million needed for her treatment. Many thanks to NAKUMATT Holdings for chipping in on this funds drive. The Pay Bill number is 516606 and pay bill account is 0715500094. Bank Account is 0300161119373 EQUITY BANK, ELDORET BRANCH. Please lets come together and help this family.
For now, the family remains in limbo, as they watch one of their own suffer and awaiting fate.
