What is Glaucoma?

by drgaebolae

Glaucoma is an eye disease that affects the optic nerve.

It causes a slow and painless progressive loss of optic nerve fibers and eventually leading to loss of vision and blindness.

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The damage to the optic nerve usually affects both eyes at the same time.

The damage can be equal in severity in both eyes or it can be unequal. The type of damage has characteristic features and effects on vision.

Damage of the optic nerve leads to a loss of peripheral vision, blurred areas and elements that disappear from the visual field. At the end, it can lead to a possible irreversible blindness.

Since glaucoma is not painful, people can never tell whether they have it unless they have their eyes checked regularly. Otherwise they will only know they have a problem when they start having difficulty in seeing.

If you are 40 years and above, have your eyes checked at least once every two years. If you have a close relative who suffers from glaucoma, or who is blind for an unknown reason, have your eyes checked annually and tell your doctor that you have a relative with glaucoma.

If you have glaucoma, use treatment as instructed by your doctor and never be without treatment. Have regular eye check ups as scheduled by your doctor.

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MD, Consultant Ophthalmologist

Glaucoma Symptoms

by drgaebolae


Sometimes glaucoma is dubbed “the silent thief of sight” because it stealthily causes irreversible vision loss.

@drkayci

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Most times there are no symptoms. Some few patients often report non specific symptoms like ocular discomfort, blurred vision, misty vision, and for those who are keen obsevers might report compressed peripheral vision. Sometimes it is picked as an incidental finding during a medical eye exam.

For those who have very high intra ocular pressures, they might report the following symptoms;

– halos (rainbows) around lights,

– loss of vision in one eye,

– cloudy looking eyes,

– sensitivity to light,

– severe and sudden eye pain.

In a nutshell, glaucoma is largely asymptomatic and hence it’s called “a silent thief of sight” It is wise to always get your eyes checked for baseline examination by an ophthalmologist.


For those who are over 40 years, an annual eye exam by an ophthalmologist is advised.

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Do We Really Need “Chinese Shop Assistants”?  

by drgaebolae

Botswana imports goods from China, fair enough! 

Anyway, where else in this modern world can you not see Chinese goods! Most likely, whatever gadget you are reading this blog piece on is a product of China! Isn’t it? 

China has reached a point where she is arguably indispensable to the world economy. You have probably woke up and used your washroom, taken a nice bath/shower, came to the living room walking on those nice marble tiles, sat down on your comfortable sofa and switched on your impeccable TV set. 

Tell you what, all those products one way or the other, are possibly products of China. Life as it is right now, at least as far as the world economy is concerned, won’t survive without China. At the tail end of all these intricate worlds of the world economy and politics, it’s me and  you.

As  the legendary Peter Tosh once said, “ I am not a politician but I suffer the consequences, seen?”, that is where me and you are. We can’t ignore all these lest we perish. And this brings us to the contention; Do we really need “Chinese shop assistants?”. 

China is already enjoying market presence in almost all corners of the world. They can sell us their goods, which we appreciate, but why are they even exporting shop assistants? Can we at least sell their goods so that we can participate in the blossoming economic gains of China?  The true essence of freedom means both economic prosperity and to a greater extent economic freedom. This can only be achieved through sensible and meaningful participation, and this starts with refusing to accept ‘Chinese shop assistants” . It is just unfathomable as to why we should import the “Chinese shop assistants”?

We already allowed China to export to our country, why can’t we at least sell the goods ourselves to our fellow countrymen. This is rather an unfair game by our partner & our government must realise that and nip that in the bud. 

It is these small acts that aggregate and form platforms on to which to truly move towards realising the true essence of freedom and emancipation.

I have been  fortunate enough to travel to other African countries & what I have seen is quite impressive, at least in some of those countries.  Chinese goods, as you would obviously expect in most African countries, are everywhere. Big shopping malls & big retail outlets are awash with Chinese goods.

What was impressive is that you don’t see the Chinese selling those goods but instead sold by locals. In quite a good number of those  places, the shop assistants are the natives. 

This is in stark contrast to our shops here in Botswana. From the security detail to the cashier, it is mostly Chinese.

We need Chinese goods and we thank you very much China. We just don’t need the imported shop assistants. We have the utmost trust our people can make very good shop assistants.

Please trust us to do very well on that one. Cheers!

slaves don’t wear signs

by drgaebolae

To many, this picture symbolises an end to arguably the greatest atrocious crime/injustice perpetrated by one race over the other over decades. 

However, breaking the shackles & chains was never the end of slavery, it was the first step in abolishing slavery. 

We should be still fighting slavery even today and each one of us must assume their moral and physical responsibility in working towards abolishing slavery in all its forms and/or guises. 

It must be realised that the slavery form has changed. The modern day slavery isn’t the bound-chains-type-of-slavery‬. People, especially Africans and to a lesser degree Asians, are voluntarily putting themselves into slavery because their minds have been, through sustained propaganda, conditioned to gravitate towards such twisted ideology. 

We have so many slaves today that they don’t even know that they are slaves because today’s slaves don’t wear signs and are not confined by shackles and chains. 

It’s possible that we might even be having more slaves today than when slavery was abolished. Just look at how many people are endangering their lives through the ever perilous boat trips through the Mediterranean on their way to Europe for supposedly ‘greener pastures’. Some leave through perfectly legal ways in the idea of looking for greener pastures. 

This ideology and profound obsession to staying closer to the master is just a clear indication of why our minds have been conditioned to always believing that staying closer to our master will make our situation better. Why can’t we stay in our countries of birth/origin and make the change we envisage in our countries of birth for the benefit of our future generations?

These people are not in chains and are acting out of “own will” and in the process they are in fact getting themselves into slavery. This is exactly how slavery has evolved and we must also evolve in how we deal with modern day slavery. Today’s slaves don’t wear signs and therefore they don’t know that they are slaves. 

This is why the modern day slave is much worse than the bound-chains-type-of-slave because today’s slave thinks is free & that’s very dangerous. The modern is completely confused and has zero insight, if not a distorted form of insight. It’s easier to help someone with insight than someone without insight into their situation. The modern day slave thinks he is free while in fact he is in a much dangerous, dire situation as compared to the bound-in-chains-slave.  

Another tragic  difference is that while the slaves back in the days were captured violently, the modern day slaves are lured by enticing stories to take themselves into voluntary, legalised bondage. And this is exactly why it is such a challenge to cure ourselves of this modern day slavery. We need to be more aggressive in dealing with the modern day slaves that we are. We can only change our situation, first we have to realise and admit it. 

Arise black race, we have the power. Only if we fully emancipate ourselves  from mental slavery!

Note: Illustration is Photo of Emancipation Statue, Bridgetown. 

humility is priceless!

by drgaebolae

Humility is really lovely!

Today my patient was a 49 year old male who has been blind since the age of 16 years. Unfortunately he sustained trauma to the head and that led to increased pressure in the brain with subsequent compression of both optic nerves. Optic nerves are the nerves responsible for making us see. The compression of the nerve led to the death of the nerves and with eventual irreversible loss of sight in both eyes.

Three days ago the gentleman fell in the bathroom and hit his right eye on the bathroom handle and therefore rupturing his right eye. When he came to casualty he was surrounded by all his siblings. The siblings were remarkably all his sisters and one nephew. As you expect in a public setting, things can go slowly sometimes due to heavy workload on doctors and nurses. Mind you, all the siblings were very well dressed and well versed in English.

It was obvious to tell that these people are very well educated and obviously well off financially. I was so awestruck by their level of civility which is very lacking in most of these “well off, educated” individuals whenever they are attended at public hospitals. These ones were different, very different! They would ask questions and want to know whats next but the manner in which they did it really impressed me.

Throughout they remained respectable, civil and professional. They will show complete trust in what we told them and our plan for further management. Showing complete informed trust and faith is different from blind trust and blind trust. These people they managed to show informed trust and faith without showing any disrespect or condescending attitude to our team.

The following morning we took our patient to the OT (operating theatre). Again, the support was amazing. The three sisters and one nephew accompanied him to the OT. Fortunately I managed to meet them before I went on to scrub for the case. we exchanged brief greetings. Just out of courtesy, I asked them how they feel and how our client is feeling. Their response was moving; they told me from our discussion the previous day and the manner in which we attended to them, they have complete confidence in my team. They gave me blessings to do whatever necessary to save their brother’s eye.  I couldn’t guarantee them that I will definitely save their brother’s eye. It is always prudent to give a guarded prognosis in such badly damaged eyes. However, I told them I am going to do my absolute best to save the eye instead of removing the eye.

Off I went to the OT to get started the operation. A few prayers, as usual, were murmured under my breath as I was quietly scrubbing for the case. In a few moments the patient was under and was time to put the scalpel. Indeed the eye was badly damaged! The whole cornea was cut through and through in a sharp of letter “W”. It was not the easiest of the cornea wounds. It was tempting to just remove the eye because it was clear that the prognosis for vision is very bad. I decided to do as I promised my clients; to do my best to save the eye. I started a tedious process of suturing the cornea from one side across to the other end. The whole procedure took just over 2 hours and thankfully I manage to achieve a good closure of the wound.

Post operation experience to follow later………