http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jan/29/surgeons-good-will-reaches-africa/
By Janet Lavelle, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Friday, January 29, 2010 at 12:04 a.m.
UCSD neurosurgeon Hoi Sang U performed surgery last week on Mulenga Kaluba of Zambia. U had traveled to Zambia in 2008 to remove a tumor behind Kaluba’s eye. When the tumor returned, U raised money to bring him to San Diego for a second operation.
John R. McCutchen / Union-Tribune
UCSD neurosurgeon Hoi Sang U performed surgery last week on Mulenga Kaluba of Zambia. U had traveled to Zambia in 2008 to remove a tumor behind Kaluba’s eye. When the tumor returned, U raised money to bring him to San Diego for a second operation.
UCSD neurosurgeon Hoi Sang U performed surgery last week on Mulenga Kaluba of Zambia. U had traveled to Zambia in 2008 to remove a tumor behind Kaluba’s eye. When the tumor returned, U raised money to bring him to San Diego for a second operation.
When the nearly blind patient met Dr. Hoi Sang U in a Zambian hospital nearly two years ago, he knew the UCSD neurosurgeon had traveled halfway around the world to save his life and possibly his sight.
What Mulenga Kaluba didn’t know was that whatever the obstacles, U would continue his volunteer medical care, even making it possible for his patient to journey from southern Africa to the United States.
“I’m the kind of doctor who believes, when you’re my patient, I never abandon you,” said U, a professor of neurological surgery at the University of California San Diego Medical School since 1978. “You’re stuck with me for life, no matter where you are or what it takes.”
This week, Kaluba, 41, is recovering from a second surgery to remove a benign tumor on his pituitary gland that had pushed against his optical nerve, robbing him of sight in his left eye and much of the vision in his right. Although the tumor wasn’t cancerous, it could have been deadly if allowed to grow.
It was a similar surgery to the one U performed on Kaluba under austere conditions in July 2008 at University Teaching Hospital in Zambia. U had volunteered to do the surgery on a medical mission funded by a Solana Beach-based charity called Variety Children’s Lifeline International.
When Kaluba’s tumor began growing again, U arranged funding for him to come to San Diego for the second surgery, performed last week. Kaluba is receiving post-surgical treatment at UCSD’s Shiley Eye Center and will undergo five rounds of radiation next week at UCSD Medical Center.
Kaluba and his wife, Brenda, then will return home to their three daughters in Chipata, a small city in eastern Zambia, where he owns a motorcycle parts shop and she works at a bank.
The tumor has been the second great health challenge in Kaluba’s life. He has used crutches since 1993, when he lost a leg in a bus accident.
With no one able to treat the tumor back home, the Zambian government paid for Kaluba and his wife to come to San Diego.
U enlisted other UCSD physicians, including neurosurgeon John Alksne and neuro-ophthalmologist Leah Levi, to donate their services. The medical center will pick up the rest of the medical costs.
U is paying for the couple’s personal expenses, including lodging.
Dr. Thomas McAfee, dean of clinical affairs at UCSD, said he approved the charity care because he was impressed with U’s commitment to this distant patient.
“I was so struck by the fact that Dr. U went to Zambia on his own time and volunteered his professional efforts to do surgery,” McAfee said. “We’re proud to have him on our faculty.”
This week, doctor and patient sat down to talk about how their lives came together, punctuating the conversation with the teasing that started in Zambia when U asked Kaluba whether he was afraid of surgery.
“I told him I knew he didn’t come all this way to kill me,” Kaluba recalled in a distinctly British accent. “After the surgery, Professor U came to see me and said, ‘Well, it looks like you aren’t dead yet.’ ”
As an internationally recognized specialist in treating tumors of the pituitary, U has traveled extensively to teach the procedure and monitors patients in China, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Hong Kong, where he was born.
The delicate surgery can be risky because the pituitary, a pea-size gland at the base of the brain, lies between the optic nerve and the carotid arteries that send blood to the front of the brain. The tumor is accessed through the sinus cavity.
U said the journey to operate on Kaluba in Zambia’s capital city, Lusaka, gave him the chance to instruct doctors at the country’s only medical teaching hospital.
Conditions in Zambia, where life expectancy is 38 and per-capita annual income is $1,500, were typical of a developing country.
“Zambia is a country of 12 million people and two neurosurgeons,” U said.
Because of a shortage of nurses, the hospital courtyard was filled with relatives camping out to care for hospitalized family members, he said.
U had brought along medical equipment, including a $250,000 electronic microscope purchased with donated funds. He quickly ran into a problem.
“The electricity for the microscope went out three or four times during the surgery,” making it impossible to remove the entire tumor, U said.
When he was told last fall that the tumor was growing, U began the effort to bring Kaluba to San Diego.
Brenda Kaluba said her husband was overcome by the news that the trip had been arranged.
“We did a lot of praying over this,” she said. “When I read him the e-mail, he cried.”
Kaluba recalled a more excited reaction. “I said: ‘Thank God I have this tumor! At least I’m going to see a place I’ve always dreamed of.’ ”
U picked them up at the airport and stopped at an In-N-Out Burger for their first taste of American food. Since then, he has taken the couple to the beach for their first view of the ocean.
Since the operation, tests on Kaluba’s right eye have been promising. “The fact that he had some measurable improvement after surgery makes us very optimistic,” U said.
Kaluba said that even with limited vision, he has been overwhelmed at the sight of the ocean and the seals at the Children’s Pool in La Jolla.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes before describing his greatest hope.
“I would like to be able to read again one day,” Kaluba said after a pause. “The first thing I would like to do is go to a church and read the Bible, if I can find a church where I can sit and do that. I really thank God for all of this.”
Janet Lavelle: (760) 476-8201; janet.lavelle@uniontrib.com
Janet Lavelle: (760) 476-8201; janet.lavelle@uniontrib.com
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