Skull cools in tummy as man awaits surgery

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Updated 4 hrs 33 mins ago

By Vincent Mabatuk

Seven months ago, a doctor opened up Naman Oracha’s stomach and placed a piece of skull inside before stitching the wound.The fragment was taken from a section of his skull, which had been broken by thugs.

The piece, nearly half of his the skull, was then put in a pouch and placed in the 26-year-old Oracha’s abdomen. When the right time comes, when he gets sufficient funds to have the necessary surgery, then it will be removed from the stomach and restored to its right place — head. For now, he has to live with a depressed side.

This procedure is meant to preserve the piece of skull. The operation was necessary after Oracha was attacked by thugs armed with metal bars who hit him on the head and left, thinking he was dead. That was on one evening in late December last year as he was heading to his Nakuru home after work.

The procedure that he underwent can be referred to as either a decompressive craniectomy or a hemicraniectomy, says Dr Isaac Chirchir, who is based in Eldoret.

This is a slightly less risky surgery since a smaller section of the skull is removed. The procedure is intended to prevent injury or death due to brain swelling.

severe trauma

“After severe trauma like what Oracha experienced, the brain can swell to such a degree that it squeezes against the cranium. This can block blood flow or warp the brain stem, two potentially fatal situations,” explains Dr Chirchir.

As a result, fragile bone marrow will wither and die unless preserved under optimal circumstances either frozen, or kept close to a warm, circulating blood supply.

“But others prefer to place the skull piece within a subcutaneous pouch that’s implanted in the abdomen, between the muscle and the fat. This is an ideal location since there is ample storage space and little danger of interfering with essential body functions,” he adds.

Oracha narrates how he regained consciousness a month after the attack at the Kijabe Mission Hospital. He had severe pains all over his body.

“It was weird. It’s the kind of thing that happens to someone else. This is the thing you see on TV programmes such as ER, but this time it happened to me. But the main thing is that I survived, so I’m very grateful,” he says.

Before the attack, Oracha was a happily married man and father of three who worked as a supplier of alcoholic drinks within Nakuru town.

He collected money at the end of the day and took it to his employer. Since he had never been threatened before, his safety was hardly an issue even though he carried money; sometimes huge amounts.

heartless passers-by

But on that fateful day, he had only collected Sh17,000 from his regular clients and was going to hand over to his boss the same evening. It was while he was on his way at 5pm that the thugs confronted him.

What hurt him more was the fact that passers-by never came to his rescue — they just looked and went ahead with their business as if nothing was happening.

Luckily, one man who knew him called his employer who came and took him to hospital.

Months after leaving hospital, things have moved from bad to worse.

His wife and three children took off, leaving him to fend for himself yet he can’t work any more.

“It never occured to me that anybody could ruin my life for good only because of money that in the first place was not even mine,” says Oracha, who originally came from Vihiga in Western Kenya and settled in Nakuru. He requires Sh250,000 to have his skull restored, which money he says he cannot raise as he is now jobless and helpless.

His biggest worry now is how to raise the amount to undergo another operation to restore the skull. He is tired of seeing people looking at him and wondering why his head looks sunken on one side.

painful smile

Obviously, the man is in great pain. But when we talked to him at The Standard Group offices in Nakuru, he tried in vain to hide his pain.

He often clenched his teeth as he struggled to speak.

He smiled to reassure us that all was well, but even smiling was an endurance.

His doctors have advised him not to do any heavy work. Without work, how does he eat or take care of himself, leave alone raising the surgery fee?

“I am tired with life, being sick and at the same time, going without a meal is not something easy,” he agonises.