A nail cost me my leg, now I can walk again

Alice Gitau shows her artificial leg fitted at Cure Kenya in Kijabe Prosthetics workshop. The centre makes limbs for accident victims and children bone with deformities. [George Njunge, Standard]

When Alice Gitau, 32, stepped on a rusty nail in Nairobi more than 10 years ago, she did not give it much thought and delayed to go for a tetanus jab.

The leg healed, but a year later she developed a painful swelling on her left foot that forced her to seek medical attention at Murang’a hospital, where it was discovered that it was rotting.

Tetanus had infected the foot and was now moving up the leg. Doctors could not save the leg and after one year, it was amputated at the knee joint.

“I have never been more worried and hopeless like I was when my leg was amputated; I had to rely on crutches to move around and do chores,” says Alice.

Her life turned upside down and she began to hate herself. The steady balance afforded by two legs was no more and focus now turned on getting a prosthetic leg.

Lowest moments

“Travelling from Murang’a to Kijabe in a matatu while clutching her crutches was one of my most difficult and low moments in life,” Alice says.

She was headed to Cure Centre Kijabe where she was admitted as prosthetic technicians from the orthopaedic workshop analysed her leg to get the right fitting.

Cure Centre, which is a faith-based organisation, conducts surgeries across the country for needy children with knock knees, club foot, burn contraction and spine deformities.

“When the orthopaedic technologist assured me that I will leave the crutches and walk again, tears rolled down my chin. How I missed walking,” Alice says.

After three weeks of admission, she was fitted with a prosthetic leg. “I was elated, I almost fell when hugging the technician,” she says. Alice went back home walking to the amazement of villagers and her child.

And Paul Kiprop, 28, stepped on a snake skeleton while grazing cattle in Baringo. He removed the bone from his foot and went about his business.

But before long, Kiprop started experiencing excruciating pain in his leg. He was rushed to hospital where doctors noticed that the leg had swollen and was changing colour.

A test revealed that the poison from the snake bone had damaged his foot and it had to be amputated.

“I cried when it as evidence that my foot was going to be amputated, but my tears could not save it. I could not herd cows and goats; I could not go to be with my peers; I could not even respond to cattle rustlers. At one time I contemplated suicide,” Kiprop says.

During a tour by Cure Center to Baringo, doctors were notified of his case. He had healed but was walking with modified crutches. Kiprop was driven to the Cure Centre where the prosthetic technicians took his measurements.

“When I was called to the orthopaedic workshop and found my prosthetic leg ready, I became emotional. And when it was fitted, I walked around the hospital in disbelief. Cure Centre has given me new hope in life; I will be able to at least herd my cows,” he says.

The Chief Orthopaedic Technologist at the centre, Seith Simiyu, says his best moment is seeing a patient leave crutches and walk.

”It makes me so happy. Some of the patients even challenge me to walk with them and are overcome with joy and cry,” Simiyu says. The doctor reveals that his lowest moment is when he fits prosthetic limbs on patients with terminal illnesses only for them to die later.

“It breaks us when we are called to remove our prosthetic limb from a patient who has died,” Simiyu adds.

Nominated MP Joseph Sankok, who has a prosthetic leg, wants the government to zero-rate the tax on raw materials used to make the artificial limbs so as to lower the cost per unit.

“If there is something that the government should zero rate, then it is materials used to make artificial limbs. They should also offer subsidies to the patients,” Sankok adds.