The Sons of Lwala screening on Thursday May 14th at the Somerville Theater is SOLD OUT. We’re already working on finding another date to do a repeat, but for now there are no more tickets available. Thanks for your understanding and stay tuned for future screening information.

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Sons of Lwala will be screened at the historic Somerville Theater in Boston on May 14th.  This will be a wonderful event!  Please join us if you are in the area.  The film will begin at 8:00pm.  Executive Director Joel Wickre will be present to offer remarks and answer questions after the screening.  

Tickets are $10.  100% of the proceeds go to the Lwala Community Alliance.

To purchase tickets in advance: Donate $10 to LCA Health and General Fund.  Bring email confirmation to the show.  If you do not want to donate online you may email BostonLwala@gmail.com to reserve tickets.

You may also purchase tickets at the door.  

Watch the trailer!

 

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From Blood:Water Mission and Jars of Clay to Vanderbilt University and the Nashville Sounds, the Nashville community has embraced and championed the Lwala Community Alliance since the beginning of this important work.  This Sunday, March 1st at 6pm, St. George’s Episcopal Church in Nashville will host a screening of the documentary “Sons of Lwala.”  Milton and Fred will speak, as will film producer Barry Simmons.  The film premiered in Nashville last spring and won three awards at the 2008 Nashville Film Festival, including the Audience Award for Best Documentary.  Admission is free and open to the public.  Please join us!  We are grateful to Mr. Larry Trabue and the congregation of St. George’s Episcopal Church for hosting this screening.  Read more about the event here.

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Last night we celebrated the Lwala premiere of the Sons of Lwala documentary. It was a grand occasion, complete with lights and popcorn. We slaughtered a bull, which is about as big as a party gets around here. About 500 people attended and watched the documentary projected onto the wall of one of the staff houses. A host of visitors were present for the festivities, including the film director/producer Barry Simmons and director of photography Iain Montgomery. They spent a couple of days in Lwala filming an update to the documentary, which will give a picture of how the clinic operates day to day. Several other visitors were present from the U.S., including Milton and Florence Ochieng’, LCA staff Joel and Caitlin, LCA volunteers Alice Werbel and Erin Loskutoff, Jena Lee from Blood:Water Mission, Larry Trabue, D.J. Smith, and Kaci McAllister.

Speeches were followed by the showing of the documentary and then by a dance party into the wee hours.

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I’ve posted the stories of 3 patients from the last couple months at the clinic, which were sent to me by our clinical officer in charge John Badia.  The stories include both triumph and failure - we wanted you to have a sense of the realities of the work in Lwala.  Roll Samuel, Angela and Otieno…

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Samuel* is a middle aged man who had been chronically ill for two and a half years. When he started to fear for his life he went to the district hospital, where he was treated for malaria, pneumonia and tuberculosis and tested positive for HIV. Due to the stigma and shame he felt about being HIV positive, he decided he could not go back to the hospital, and his treatment lapsed. But Samuel’s health continued to deteriorate, and he attended another hospital in a neighboring district where there was less risk of seeing people he knew, and he was started again on anti-TB drugs. But the drug regimen was onerous and transportation for appointments to the hospital proved too expensive, so Samuel opted instead for traditional herbal therapies at home.

Samuel’s father is a community elder and a pastor, and as he saw his son wasting away he decided to take him to the Lwala health center. By this point Samuel was bed ridden and severely wasted, and he had to be taken to the health center on a bicycle. At the clinic Samuel shared his story of intermittent treatment, including the ways that stigma and poverty had kept him from being on regular treatment for TB and HIV. After a week of counseling and much emotional support Samuel started on a second-line anti-TB regimen, since he had likely developed resistance to the first-line drugs.

Six months later Samuel is doing well at home.  He has gained back a lot of weight and now comes to his appointments at the clinic by riding the bike that was used to carry him there in the first place. He recently started on anti-retroviral therapy for AIDS. Several members of his family have also come to the clinic and tested positive, and though they don’t yet need anti-retrovirals they’re receiving septrin and multivitamins and regular care at the clinic. Samuel doesn’t have to hide his disease anymore from him family – they have banded together to live positively with HIV.

*a pseudonym

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A young woman named Angela*, barely 20 years old, came to the clinic 27 weeks pregnant and was found to have tuberculosis and HIV with chronic diarrhea, wasting and general weakness. She had been living with her husband in Nairobi, but was sent home when she fell ill to stay with an aunt who sells vegetables in the market and might be able to provide for her and the baby. Angela was immediately enrolled in the clinic and treated first for several opportunistic infections and then for tuberculosis. She was also enrolled in the clinic’s antenatal care program to prevent the transmission of HIV to her baby, and treated with antiretroviral therapy for AIDS. The Lwala staff consulted with a physician in Kisumu by phone to determine how to integrate care for these various problems without putting the fetus at risk.

Angela’s health improved rapidly, and within 2 weeks she had put on weight, the diarrhea had stopped, and her cough stopped. However, Angela decided to give birth with the assistance of a traditional birth attendant rather than at the clinic, and was unable to report back to the clinic for 2 weeks after the birth due to an incapacitating illness post delivery. The opportunity to take special doses of antiretroviral drugs to maximally reduce the risk of HIV transmission to the child was missed.

Angela and her baby are now enrolled in the maternal and child health program at the clinic, and Angela is on regular antiretroviral therapy. Since the laboratory equipment is not available in the area to test a newborn for HIV, it will be a number of months before the baby can be reliably tested for HIV using the methods available at the clinic. While the treatment Angela received undoubtedly reduced the risk of transmitting the virus to the baby to some degree, significant risk still remains due to missing the special doses of anti-retrovirals around the delivery and due to the risks associated with breastfeeding the child.

*a pseudonym

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Otieno* is an elderly man who had been sick for 2 years.  He was diagnosed with HIV several years ago but not started on treatment, and as he became weaker he was unable to seek care due to lack of mobility. His wife eventually brought him to the Lwala clinic, where he was found to have pneumonia, dementia, incontinence and a foot lesion that had been deteriorating for over 3 years. He was successfully treated at the clinic for pneumonia, and diabetes was ruled out by lab tests, but a month later he was back in with pneumonia. He was retreated but another month later was back in a third time. On his third visit, the clinic staff consulted with Dr. Jeff Andrews, a member of Lwala’s medical advisory board who was visiting Lwala at the time. Together they determined that he had tuberculosis and that his HIV disease had progressed to full-blown AIDS. He was started on septrin and multivitamins for HIV maintenance. The staff visited Otieno in his home because they were worried abut whether or not he would be able to adhere to the anti-TB and anti-retroviral drug regimens. They found that his recurring pneumonia was the result of lying in cold, wet bedding, which his wife couldn’t keep clean and dry due to her advanced age. The ulcer on his foot turned out to be a result of dragging his foot around on the dirt floor, because he couldn’t walk well. The staff continued to visit Otieno in his home, but they were unable to create a supportive environment or to get him onto regular drug therapy for TB or AIDS. Otieno eventually succumbed to AIDS and TB.  His wife is HIV positive and is on antiretroviral therapy at the clinic and doing well.

*a pseudonym

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The man on the right is one of our first tuberculosis patients, John.  8 months ago he was carried to the clinic, unable even to walk.  The pharmacist, Denis, pictured here on the left holding a “stop TB kit,” thought he didn’t have a chance.  But with careful adherence to the anti-TB drug regimen John is now walking, talking, and altogether in much better shape. More people die in the world today from TB than from AIDS.  John will not be one of them.

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