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| Meja was a trooper at the doctors office. He was in great spirits and really brave. |
Meet
Meja. He is a normal 10 year old little
boy except for one significant difference, he is totally blind. We have been very busy the last several
months with Mission:180’s “Hampers Of Hope” campaign, and on one of our
deliveries we found ourselves at young Meja's home. Our hearts
were really touched by his situation, and we felt really compelled to do
something to try and help. We
included his story in our last blog post, and many of you responded generously
with funds to help with medical expenses.
We were able to take him to the “Lions First Sight” hospital in Nairobi
recently, where several specialists saw Meja.
Sadly, Meja has been given a very poor
prognosis. It seems something caused
swelling in his brain, directly behind his eyes. The pressure cut off the blood supply to his
optic nerves for a prolonged time frame, causing the nerves to die, which is
the cause of his blindness. It seems
that once nerves have been totally damaged in this way, they can never recover.
So Meja has been told he will never see again.
This terrible diagnosis was very difficult to hear, as we were
desperately hoping that this would be a treatable and curable condition. It is even more infuriating because we have
been told this likely would have been treatable and preventable had he received
proper care early on.
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| Checking for "refraction". Nothing is happening. |
Where do we go from here? What is the next
step for Meja? We are committed to helping him so in the new year we will be
looking into various residential care facilities where he will be taught how to
read Brail, how to walk with a cane, and basically how to live with and cope
with his disability.
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| A very sad prognosis followed this machine. |
We are really hoping and praying for a
miracle in this precious little boys life. However, we are also going to do
what we can in the meantime to help him.
Thank-you all for your words of kindness towards Meja, for your prayers for him, and for your generous support of his medical care and now his specialized education.
Jason, Jennifer and Joshua Sheppard
Mission:180 Kenya!
