As I have written previously, I enjoy going for walks (and previously, runs...) in the local village outside our gated community. So before Mum and Carol left for Australia, I took them for a short walk around the shanty town and around the lake that I like to visit every couple of months.
As we were chatting and wandering along I saw a man having his arm washed by his wife. I didn't go too close but it looked like a serious burn. She was washing it with locally sourced water and thats all........I would think that would only be adding to the pain and infection !!
As we continued on our way, I couldn't stop thinking about the pain that man looked like he was in. So after breakfast, Carol and Mum went to the local pharmacy ( a hole in the wall type place) and bought some painkillers, antibiotics (no script needed here......) and some antiseptic cream. When Anthony returned from dropping Mike at work we had him take us back around to see the man. We needed Anthony to assist with the language barrier - for us to find out what happened, and also to give the medication instructions.
When we arrived, we found the man sitting in his 'house' (more like a piece of iron with a tarp roof) and he was in a lot of pain. We had a look at the wound which was really really bad, and we asked lots of questions - he hadn't been burned but was bitten by a snake. Many months ago - yep !! craziness! He had been cutting and collecting wood for the fire in a local overgrown field when he was bitten by the snake. He had been to the doctor but that was months ago. So we talked him through the medication he needed to take and that he must eat when taking the painkillers and antibiotics.
The wound did not look good - as you can see - and having had the wound for months, we were not holding out too much hope for a full recovery. From what we could see the issue may now have gone further and was an infection in the bone.
When I left I said I would return in a week to see how things were.
After my return from Pushkar, and lots of discussions about the 'Snake Bite' man, myself and a couple of other ladies returned to see how he had got on. The wound did look a bit better but we still felt the infection was too far gone. I asked Anthony to ask him what the doctors had said, and he replied with: 'take it off'! and he had refused this. So, we asked him what he would like us to do and he said some more medication would be good because he slept better with them. However, in further discussions he said he just wanted to die now. He was only drinking alcohol and not eating - just waiting to die.
At this point, I felt that I had done all I could do, as he didn't want further assistance from us. However, as we were leaving we noticed the man's 8 year old son limping and he seemed in a lot of pain. We asked what had happened and he had failed from his bike and hurt his ankle. Again, it looked like a the wound had a serious infection.
After more 'one sided' conversations, we went to the pharmacy and stocked up on more painkillers, antibiotics, antiseptics etc for both Dad and son. I was flying out to Phuket, so the other girls got the young boy some medical attention and some staple food - rice, daal etc. The girls had their maid and driver visit regularly over the week to see how the boy was doing and he slowly improved. However by the end of the week the boy was not around - his parents had sent him to school........
He wasn't ready for that yet but the parents felt it was ok. Then they started demanding more food, money etc. That is when we decided we had done what we could do and we had to step back. We can only help in small ways, and some days it is never enough.
The following photos are not for viewing by anyone with a weak stomach.
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This was on the first day - note the fingers......
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he was still in incredible pain
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