Life of A Bush Doctor (2002)

Excerpt from the draft of "Apostle to the Pygmies – The Doctor Jerry Galloway Story"

I admitted a 14-year old boy from Kiri to the hospital, who suffered from osteomyelitis, an infection of the bone. He received treatment in Kiri for three months. Now he had a pathological fracture of his femur. He needed radical surgery, which I could not do. I told the family they had to take him to the University in Kinshasa. I offered to pay the cost of the boat ticket. Then, I made a splint with plaster to stabilize the fracture.

Another patient was a 12-year old boy with leukemia. He asked Father Paul to baptize him and give him his first communion. Father Paul and I, along with ten students, and an accordion player, held a small celebration in the boy's room. The boy was full of smiles and was very happy. I gave him a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. Three days later, the boy passed away. He never complained and always smiled whenever I visited him.

We had a female patient with a ruptured extra-uterine pregnancy. She was in shock and needed at least two units of blood before the emergency operation could start. No family members were available to donate blood, so the pharmacist and I each donated our blood. The lady made it through the surgery. The next day, I operated on a lady with ovarian cysts, and previous infections blocked both ovarian tubes. The blockage was a common cause of sterility.

I operated on a newborn baby I called our miracle baby. The little girl, born the night before, had a defect in her abdominal wall, and her intestines were outside the abdomen in a sac. I got my surgery book and read how to repair it. We were not too hopeful but operated anyway. We managed to get the intestines back into the abdomen and sewed her up. Later, the baby girl was having bowel movements and breastfeeding. The hand of the Lord was upon us.