Excerpt from draft of “Apostle to the Pygmies – The Doctor Jerry Galloway Story”
The following day, Mfutu and I went to Itendo. Mpia, the only female nurse, had everything well organized. The main problem in Itendo was that the construction of a clinic was still not completed. This made the work more difficult. I gave the village one more month to finish the clinic. I advised them I would have to close the dispensary unless they completed it.
From there, we decided to go to the next dispensary in Monio. The road to Monio passed through a dense forest and swamp. This section was the worst stretch of road we had to travel. We got stuck twice in the swampy part of the roadway, but thanks to four-wheel-drive, we were able to get through the swamp. We only encountered one massive tree across the road. A young Belgium doctor who was visiting the Sisters traveled with us. He was amazed at the diversity of work that a bush doctor had to do.
When I arrived at Monio, I was exhausted and thought about taking a bath in the creek and going to bed early. However, ten minutes after coming, the nurse thought he had a strangulated hernia. I examined him, and sure enough, he had a hernia and required emergency surgery. The doctor and nurse supervisor had already unloaded the jeep and were upset when I told them to load up. We had to make an emergency trip to Pendjua to operate on the nurse. I did not like to drive through the forest and swamp at night, but I had no choice. We arrived at the hospital at 8:30 p.m., and Sister Elise and I operated on the nurse. The operation was just in time. The intestine was trapped in the hernia sac and had already turned blue due to lack of circulation. The nurse recovered.
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