Nyombi Thembo's daughter's arm was amputated. It changed their lives forever

Her left hand began to rot by the sixth day following a deadly accident.

“George [Nyombi Thembo] and I looked at each other as a finger would be cut off our daughter’s hand every day. Pus was moving so fast that the earlier the amputation, the higher the chances of salvaging what was left of her hand,” Angella Naggayi Thembo recalled this series of life changing points in her life.

At seven years old, Condelezza Nakazibwe Nyamisanga Thembo the last-born child of former minister George Nyombi Thembo was fighting the odds to survive with or without her left limb.

Six days earlier (November 17, 2019), her ten-year-old brother Schwarzkopf Katende Thembo had bravely placed his little self-amidst speeding vehicles in the middle of Entebbe express highway to halt in rescue of his sister who was trapped in the wreckage.

For the driver who had chauffeured the brother and sister, he had run off, abandoning the youngsters.

Bits of ME

Spending time with the Thembos’ I picked up on lessons of love, courage, resolve, hope and acknowledgement of life’s controls amid the unforeseeable.

While fate may give you tragedies, it can also hand you fortune.

But are we ever ready to fight on in situations of misery just as we embrace the excitement of bliss?

“That call that my children had been involved in an accident came when I was in Kasese. The boy was okay but the girl was badly off. The elder brother told me that they were rushing her to hospital but it looked like the arm was getting off’, Nyombi Thembo recollected the incident.

The doctors at Seguku Doctors’ hospital and Platinum after days of trying to save their daughter’s life and her hand, recommended the unwelcome-amputation.

Attempting to move mountains on advice from their family doctor, Condoleza was 24 hours later placed on a hospital stretcher at Apollo hospital in India for a second opinion.

Her mother had a pile of conflicting loyalties; all demons coming out on a piece of paper awaiting her signature.

Life’s picture of torture

“While I insisted against the amputation, I could see that some part of her hand was completely dead,” she sadly admitted.

“At some point they aided me to move the cursor on the computer myself as they determined the hand cut off frames. As I moved the cursor, I saw that the whole hand was going to be cut off. I blacked out.”

Caught between saving the life of their daughter; Nyombi Thembo’s consent was a recorded confirmation via cellphone as the couple travelled through the pain to seal the ink on paper.

After the amputation

Later Nyombi Thembo received the dreaded doctor’s call.

“Can we keep this lower arm assuming you have any cultural associations to body parts?” the doctor asked.

His wife (Naggayi) said they handed her the other part of the arm.

"Where was I taking it? Am I putting it in my bag? Am I carrying it home? I was combat hardened. My husband and I made a unanimous decision. We pray about it. I walked to the dust bin and placed it there," she said.

Bits of YOU

"I woke up with a bandage on my arm. I felt surprised. I asked my mum why? She said, ‘they’d cut off my hand’. I asked why? She told me, ‘It was damaged’. I said, okay because I already knew it was damaged when I saw it while at Seguku," 10-year-old Condeleeza Nakazibwe rewinds the day she awakened out of surgery in India.  

The beautiful, slick talking, vibrant 10-year-old Conde as she is intimately referred to by the Thembos’, is no slave to self-pity but a magnetic pull of cheerfulness and splendour symbolic in her achievements as the reigning Miss Mini Little Universe 2021.

"The accident didn’t change anything. It just took a body part away from me. I am still the same as I was before the accident," she revealed.

"The first days I was in pain. I had a challenge to go to the bathroom and cutting things or foodstuffs but everything else I could do."

Conde contested against 47 little girls and was crowned queen after winning Miss Popularity on Facebook with majority vote worldwide.

While her parents, supporting friends and family had financially procured her a prosthetic arm, Conde humbly turned it down saying, ‘it will just slow me down. It is heavy and doesn’t allow me to play properly. I don’t like it and I am happy without it’.

She was an actively involved child in several sporting games including competitive swimming at SEALS swimming club before the accident with three medals to her name; a gold and two silver medals from the Midland Swimming Competition.

After the amputation, Conde surprised her family when she effortlessly jumped into the pool by herself.

Her return to compete since the amputation has added her two more medals.

Her mother says: “she competes with the able-bodied. It’s very tough for her but the times she has beat them; I just lose myself yelling across the swimming pool.”

The swimming breast stroke hopeful who today is a member of the Gators Swimming club vows to be the first Ugandan to bring back gold from the World Paralympics and also has her heart set on becoming a heart surgeon.

Whether disabled or not, Conde advises that you have to believe in yourself.

"I am confident, I have hope and you should to," she courageously says.