Dr. Richard posted the following on his own Blog, which can be read by clicking here.
Ordinary people don’t get obituaries that people read. However he was really extraordinary because of his stoicism and gentleness, so, forgive me for telling you about Dennis Odong who died on my ward this week.
He epitomises what we are trying to do on Hope Ward. He came from Lira in the recently war torn part of north Uganda. About 2 years ago our clinic in Lira found him with this facial cancer and he spent a lot of the next 2 years on Hope Ward. Chemotherapy is given monthly for 6 monthly cycles.
Dennis only has his mother, who is dying, and at 9 years of age he was her sole carer. Sadly when we allowed him home after one of his cycles of treatment he did not come back and when we did find him he was in a very poor physical state.
So, over the last year he has spent most of his life on Hope Ward, having chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery.
He became a special part of the hospital and everybody loved him. He only spoke Acholi and so many of us could not talk to him but I think I got to know him very well and became very fond of him.
2 weeks ago we took our Hope Ward kids to the zoo at Entebbe and this with the love and care he got from our lovely nurses, highlights what we can do, even if we don’t win every time.
