17/01/2023
During the war in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, a 7 year old boy was brought in to the hospital where I was part of the surgical team on-call.
He had been attacked 6 hours previously with a machete on the left side of his abdomen. It was a perfect anatomical dissection. His spleen and left kidney were hanging out and his stomach was bloated from paralytic ileus.
He asked me if he was going to die. As far as I was concerned, there was no ways he would survive, given the blood loss, the delay in bringing him in from the rural areas, and of course the extreme nature of the injuries.
I lied : “No, of course not. You’re going to be fine”. He looked relieved.
He was taken to surgery and one week later he was running around the ward, playing with the other kids, as though nothing had happened.
I’m convinced to this day, that had I told him what I really was thinking, he would have given up all hope and died.
