Healed and redeemed: Editha’s story
“I went to many hospitals, and they told me that it was impossible to treat her.” Magreth is the mother of Editha, a little girl from Tanzania who suffers from a congenital condition called popliteal pterygium, which affects the development of the skin. Editha was born with thick webs of skin on the back of her knee joints, which made making walking impossible.
It’s a treatable condition, but in a country where medical care is difficult to access, Magreth hit brick walls each time she sought care for her wheelchair-ridden child. Magreth has been searching for help since Editha was four months old. She is now six.
Doctor after doctor informed Magreth there was no help to be had, yet she maintained hope that a cure for her daughter existed. Then, a local NGO told her about CURE Ethiopia and gave her the contact information of a surgeon who worked there. Magreth reached out and found the one thing she’d been desperately seeking: hope. Soon, she and Editha travelled from Tanzania to Ethiopia to begin a long, life-changing journey.
Editha, the middle of three children, is a wheelchair-whiz with a sweet disposition and a contagious zest for life. This remarkable girl resided at CURE Ethiopia for the better part of a year, and over that time, she’s endured three difficult surgeries to get out of her wheelchair and walk on two straight legs.
To begin her healing journey, Editha left her home, her school, her family and friends, and bravely succumbed to the hard work and physical pain to overcome her disability.
She had three procedures within the first month of her stay at CURE Ethiopia; after that, many months were spent recovering, participating in physical therapy, and playing. For the next five months, Editha wore a series of frames on her legs, greatly limiting her mobility. After the frames came casts.
A month after the frames came off, she took her very first steps with the aid of a walker. By the following month, the walker was history, and she began walking with the help of crutches. Two months after that—and 10 months after her arrival—doctors sent her home to Tanzania. She still had casts, but they could be removed by a clinic close to home. Her healing will continue with the aid of an orthopaedic shoe made just for her.
The scared little girl who came to CURE Ethiopia is not the same girl who left. We will miss the sound of her laughter bouncing through our hallways; however, we delight in Editha’s physical and emotional transformation. For Magreth, too, this has been a time of healing. Her fear of the uncertainties of the future has passed, she told us. “I have experienced more faith, strength, and hope since we came here.”
Footnote: Written by Holly Jennings
