It's been three years of pain and numbness

Susan Wambui’s (pictured) life took a unexpected turn after a tetanus shot she had in 2016. She’s now battling depression as a result.

When I checked myself into a health centre in Kawangware in September 2016, all I needed was an injection to prevent an infection. I had cut myself while tilling my mother’s land in Dagoretti. It was a minor cut, I wrapped a piece of cloth around it to prevent excessive bleeding. I went to the hospital immediately to get a tetanus jab.

Medics at the health facility prescribed three tetanus injections which were spread across seven months. By the time I was going for my third and final injection in March 2017, the wound had already healed. In fact, I only went for the injection to complete the dosage.

But the third injection was different. I knew something was amiss when I started feeling a sharp pain on my left arm, around the area that was injected. My hand also felt heavy. I went back to the health centre a week later to ask why there was pain in my left hand where I had received the injection. By this time, the hand felt numb right from the fingers to the shoulder.

Doctors at the facility prescribed a kind of medication which they said would help boost my nerve function. 

There was no improvement even after taking the drugs for a full month so I decided to seek a second opinion. At this point, I thought I was going to be paralysed. The fact that the prescribed medication wasn’t helping was very frustrating and I was forced to close my business.

My next stop was Kenyatta National Hospital where doctors hinted on a possible damage to my nerve cells around the upper part of the arm. They said the nerves had been tempered with.

They prescribed therapy which I underwent. They were mostly exercises on my hand to ease the pain. This too didn’t help. The therapist at KNH would later refer me to a nerves specialist at the facility. She told me that therapy wasn’t working because they didn’t know what particular nerves had been tempered with.

For the past one year, I have been in and out of hospital looking for a nerve specialist. I haven’t been able to get proper help due to financial constraints. All the while, I have been on medication which doctors prescribed to boost my nerve function.

I have also suffered depression for not knowing what I am suffering from. The last time I went to KNH, I was diagnosed with depression. An additional set of medication to manage my depression was added on my prescription. The doctors also advised me to look for a job that would require me to use one hand.

My arm is very sensitive to cold. I usually walk around with heavy gloves to keep it warm. I also avoid touching cold water as this numbs the arm and the fingers. Sometimes when I try to do laundry, it swells for days. And in the event that I avoid medication, I turn into a zombie because of the pain. I was forced to take my son to a boarding school when the condition started to take a toll on me.

My greatest desire at the moment is to know what I am being treated for. Since 2016, I have been on medication without a single test to reveal which part of my hand has been injured.

Despite my condition, I count myself lucky that I can move about and do personal activities without much help. I have also learnt to adapt to using one hand to do some of the things I used to do before. The only problem is the pain I have to endure every day around my shoulder, the numbness of the rest of the arm and being resigned to a life of medication.