Excerpt from draft of "Apostle to the Pygmies – The Doctor Jerry Galloway Story”
Dr. Jerry Galloway examining a patient in the village.
In the second week of May, the hospital had many critically ill adults and children. One of them was a little eight-year-old Batwa boy, Boombo, who was carried on a stretcher for seventy miles. He arrived in critical condition with double pneumonia, heart failure and an infection of the heart valve. His blood count was twenty percent of that of an average boy. Somehow, he survived the first twenty-four hours after receiving intravenous fluids, blood transfusions, antibiotics and heart medicines.
For six days he gradually improved. He would flash a smile when I visited him three times each day. He valiantly fought to survive. Then, after each succeeding day his condition worsened. His blood count dropped drastically, and I gave him 3/10 of a liter of my own blood. Later that same week, Boombo died, quietly and gently. Sad tears ran down my flushed face. Why did such young children have to suffer like this?
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