This Saturday, Rachida and her grandma Kadi were able to come over! And I got a whole different story from them than what I had posted last time (blogs.ethnos360.org/susie-l/2017/06/02/prayer-needed-for-little-rachida/). Unlike in March, Rachida can’t see anything anymore. But Kadi said that that is because Rachida now has cataracts in addition to her retinoblastoma cancer. The problem is that they can’t operate on the cataracts or it risks to spread the cancer, and the cataracts act as a type of cover, protecting the cancer from the treatments. So the doctors in Mali have been in contact with doctors in France, who have sent some new kind of chemotherapy that is supposed to treat both the cataracts and cancer at the same time. It sounds like she had one treatment, which was very hard on her body, and now has a 3 month break before going back for the next treatment.
This time I didn’t hear any of the story of needing to go to France and not being able to. So what is true? I don’t know. But at least this update sounds a bit more encouraging.
Thanks for your continued prayers for Rachida and her family!