Sita Maya’s story Sita Maya lived with her father, three sisters and two brothers in Rautahat, about 100km south of Kathmandu in the Terai region. Her mother died when she was one year old and since then her father and elder brother managed to find daily work in fields in order to meet the financial needs of this big family. She was brought from her village to our hospital on the 26th of December 2005 by an ICRC employee at the age of seven, presenting a giant open and infected malignant tumor of the left orbit.
According to her father, she was born with it and it kept growing over the years. She had her first operation on the 12th of June 2005 in Til Ganga Hospital in Kathmandu where the doctors tried to remove the tumor that at this time was 8x6x3 cm. At her time of admission in SKMH, it was bigger (11x10.4x8.4 cm) and was extending downwards, outwards and to the right, displacing the nasal bone. We first cleaned the tumor, gave Sita Maya blood transfusions and established the diagnosis and procedure to follow, with the help of a German oncologist. It appeared that she had a rhabdomyo sarcoma. She then had 2 cycles of chemotherapy in the Bhaktapur Cancer Hospital (BCH) and we surgically removed the tumor on the 9th of May 2006. Sita Maya underwent in total 6 cycles of chemotherapy in BCH, but after few sessions we could see that the chemo was not curative anymore but palliative: her cancer was progressive. We thus manage to reduce this little girl's suffering by providing her symptomatic treatments. In fact she had been brought to our hospital too late to be cured and her father was uncooperative with the treatment: either he did not show up with his daughter or he brought her many weeks after our appointments for follow-up, even though chemo and palliative treatments showed good results. He finally took her back to their village while we were still trying to decrease her pain. We have not had any news from her for a long time, but we guess that she has passed away due to her cancer.
Sushma’s story During our Operation camp in Surkhet in October 2004, a mother brought us Sushma, her 4 month-old-baby for a check up. She had her two lower legs totally burnt when she fell on fire open fire while attempting to crawl without supervision.
She received immediate treatment in the camp and our team took her back to our hospital for surgery and further treatment. She stayed in Sankhu for 8 months: she was so weak and young that we had to take care of her general condition first before being able to operate on her without any complications. We had to amputate the front part of her charred feet, including the toes and to perform skin grafts on her right leg. She was then discharged but we asked her mother to bring her back to the hospital after six months so that she could get further treatment and surgery, as well as orthopedic shoes. Sushma learnt during a period of 2 months how to walk properly with her new shoes with the help of our physiotherapists and then she went back to Surkhet with her mom. She now comes once a year for follow up and until now, Sushma is doing very well.
Papu’s story Papu is a 7-year old-boy who is, as many of our patients, a victim of the civil war that has heavily hit some regions of Nepal since 1996. Papu does not know anything about his mom and dad and lives in an orphanage in Butwal. He used to go to school with one of his friend and one day, when the school was closed they decided to go back to town by a forest path. They found on their way a non-exploded grenade left either by the army or the Maoists on the fighting ground. They played with it, wondering what it was and accidentally made it blast. Papu's friend died on the spot whereas he suffered from serious injuries on the mouth, hands and most of his left leg. The blast destroyed the skin and bone of his left lower leg. He was first treated in Butwal but they quickly referred him to us for surgery. Papu got the treatment for free and after more than 6 operations - including microsurgery, reconstructive surgery and bone grafting - and 10 months at SKM hospital, he recovered the use of his leg and was discharged. He still lives in the orphanage in Butwal and the Nepali Red Cross takes care of his current treatment expenses, as he is now considered as a war victim.
Sita Maya lived with her father, three sisters and two brothers in Rautahat, about 100km south of Kathmandu in the Terai region. Her mother died when she was one year old and since then her father and elder brother managed to find daily work in fields in order to meet the financial needs of this big family. She was brought from her village to our hospital on the 26th of December 2005 by an ICRC employee at the age of seven, presenting a giant open and infected malignant tumor of the left orbit. 
During our Operation camp in Surkhet in October 2004, a mother brought us Sushma, her 4 month-old-baby for a check up. She had her two lower legs totally burnt when she fell on fire open fire while attempting to crawl without supervision. 
Papu is a 7-year old-boy who is, as many of our patients, a victim of the civil war that has heavily hit some regions of Nepal since 1996. Papu does not know anything about his mom and dad and lives in an orphanage in Butwal. He used to go to school with one of his friend and one day, when the school was closed they decided to go back to town by a forest path. They found on their way a non-exploded grenade left either by the army or the Maoists on the fighting ground. They played with it, wondering what it was and accidentally made it blast. Papu's friend died on the spot whereas he suffered from serious injuries on the mouth, hands and most of his left leg. The blast destroyed the skin and bone of his left lower leg. He was first treated in Butwal but they quickly referred him to us for surgery. Papu got the treatment for free and after more than 6 operations - including microsurgery, reconstructive surgery and bone grafting - and 10 months at SKM hospital, he recovered the use of his leg and was discharged. He still lives in the orphanage in Butwal and the Nepali Red Cross takes care of his current treatment expenses, as he is now considered as a war victim.
