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While fellow four-year-olds are naming objects and reciting numbers in school, Shelmid from Amagoro, Busia County, has been forced to stay at home after failing to find a lasting solution to her predicament.
When she turned four this year, her body started changing and she grew breasts like those of an adolescent girl. The growth, according to her guardian, started after teachers from her school reported that she was experiencing pain in her lower abdomen and that she bled whenever she went for short-calls.
While her agemates go about their lives playing and enjoying childhood, Shelmid has been reduced to a sad girl, constantly clinging on her grandma’s dress crying from the painful daily bleeding. Attempts to get her medical assistance have failed as doctors have not been able to comprehend her condition leaving her with no option but to face her pains.
It is at her age, four, that children get inquisitive, repeating “why” after “why” trying to understand an explanation or make sense out of everything. For Shelmid, her 'whys' are increasing as hope of get help flickers out. She is constantly under pain and endures mood swings, something that has seen her drop out of school.
“Whenever the sporadic pains start, she will clench to her tummy and call me in distress “tata inauma” (granny, its painful). The same is the case when she goes for short-calls,” narrates her grandmother Esness Amajija. “The pains come, take two days and strike again while she goes for short-calls, it’s after every two minutes.
“We have gone to a number of hospitals but every time we are turned back without a solution. Tests done on her [Shelmid] have not revealed much and doctors say there is nothing wrong with her,” she continues.
Amajija, a widow, has had to bear this torment for months as her granddaughter’s condition deteriorates. She says there’s not much she can do for her grand-daughter as attempts to seek help have been futile and the expenses are getting too high.
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