Real story, real danger – Why medical supplies should be your #1 Emergency priority!
Mercy was always careful with her diabetes medication. Always. She lived alone in a two-bed flat in Langata. Though her cupboards were modest, her pill box was always perfectly arranged: morning tablets, afternoon injections, and evening doses.
Mercy was a primary school teacher, gentle with children but quietly hard on herself. She first discovered she had diabetes during a routine medical check at a teacher’s wellness camp. The nurse frowned, pricked her again, and then again, as if repeating the test might change the numbers. It didn’t. Mercy sat there, numb, clutching the brochure they handed her. The words blurred: “Chronic condition. Lifelong management. Lifestyle changes.”
It hit her harder because this was not unfamiliar ground. She had watched her mother fight the same battle — insulin pens, blurred vision, hospital nights, and finally, the exhaustion that settled into her bones – rendering her unable to participate in everyday activities for fear of getting an injury, that would turn into a diabetic ulcer. Now the weight had shifted to Mercy. A quiet grief settled inside her: not dramatic, but heavy, like a wet wool blanket over her shoulders. She felt betrayed by her own blood. And yet, she tucked it in, folded the grief tight, and told herself what teachers always do — keep going, the children are watching.
What the children could not see was the heartbreak that came quietly, but it cut deep. She had met Peter — a biology and math teacher from a secondary school — at the National Teachers’ Conference in Mombasa. For a while, it felt promising. They shared long conversations about students, lesson plans, and dreams that could fit together. But when Mercy finally told him about her diagnosis, his warm attentiveness turned cold.
A man trained in science, who should have understood the nature of chronic conditions better than most, instead saw it as a disqualifier. “You’ll struggle to raise a family. This will be too much,” he said bluntly. The words stayed with Mercy long after he walked away. Since then, Mercy had not let anyone else close. Not because there weren’t others — there were — but because Peter had shown her something bitter: even educated people, even those who should know better, could be small when it mattered most. His rejection planted a quiet doubt inside her, and that doubt built careful, invisible walls around her heart.
She anchored her life on strict routines — balancing her sugar levels with the same precision she brought to her classroom work plans. Work, rest, medication, diet — all carefully measured. But life, in its familiar cruelty, has a way of testing even the most disciplined hearts.
The national budget barely crossed Mercy’s mind that month. Budgets, politics — they belonged to other people’s worlds. Her world was simpler, smaller: maintain sugar levels, manage exhaustion, survive the day. But even in that small world, the weight of rising prices pressed hard. Groceries cost more. Insulin cost more. The city itself felt heavier somehow.
When the protests began, she heard them first before she saw them. A dull chant rolling through Langata’s dusty streets — angry voices mixing with the hum of boda bodas. At first, it was easy to dismiss: young men shouting, boys with loud opinions – all marching towards the city center. But by the third day, something shifted. The crowds grew larger, the chants sharper. They called themselves Gen-Z now — and their rage was on wheels.
By Wednesday, her flat trembled at night with the shriek of police sirens slicing through the dark. News clips showed burning tyres, broken glass, masked faces in the smoke. The youths swore to storm Parliament by week’s end.
Mercy stood at her window that evening, watching the flicker of distant fires. She ran her fingers absently over her insulin pen on the kitchen table. She had enough for today. Tomorrow, she wasn’t sure. And with the roads blocked, with shops shut, with no way into town — one missed dose could tilt everything. Diabetes doesn’t wait for protests to end.
On day three, Mercy’s blood sugar began to slide dangerously. She had been careful, always careful — but this time, life had outpaced her discipline. The last salary delay had forced her to stretch her insulin supply thinner than usual, postponing her pharmacy trip. She told herself it was only for a few days. She didn’t factor in a city under siege.
By the afternoon, her hands were trembling. She tried to focus on her marking but the words blurred, swimming like fish on the page. She felt an odd, hollow dizziness behind her eyes, as though her head was no longer entirely attached to her body.
By day four, the city felt like a war zone. Smoke rose in the distance as burning tires marked blocked roads. The police had sealed off most of the major arteries, and the smaller streets were swarmed by angry protesters. Even the neighborhood shops were shuttered. Mercy sat by her window, clutching her phone. She tried calling the pharmacy, even her neighbor. Nothing. The mobile networks were overwhelmed. The silent blinking of ‘call failed’ became a cruel rhythm.
By mid-morning on day five, the weakness was no longer subtle. She could barely keep her eyes open. Her skin felt clammy. She reached for her water glass but missed it, knocking it to the floor. The crash startled her. She tried to stand, but her legs betrayed her. The fall was silent. No scream, just a soft thud as her body folded awkwardly onto the cold tiled floor.
It was her next-door neighbor, Mama Judy, who heard the thud. She called out to her, but got no response. Mama Judy was quick-thinking. She didn’t waste time, she put her seven year old son over Mercy’s balcony seeing that the back door was open and asked him to go inside and open the front door. She did not bother to call an ambulance, everyone knew ambulances wouldn’t get through that chaos anyway. Instead, she called her nephew, Dr. Lameck, who run a private clinic in Ngei Three, within Langata.
Lameck was off-duty that morning and had his old pickup at home. The backstreets within the Estate were not that risky, he knew them well. Within 20 minutes, he had navigated the barricades and reached Mercy’s flat.
He carried her to the pickup himself, his strong arms surprisingly gentle, his voice steady:
“You’re safe now. We’ll sort you out.”
At the clinic, after stabilizing her with IV fluids and carefully administered insulin, Lameck sat by her bedside, monitoring her vitals. When she opened her eyes, dazed but alive, he smiled.
“You gave us quite a scare, Teacher Mercy.”
She tried to speak but her throat was dry.
“Rest,” he said softly, adjusting her blanket. “There’s plenty of time to talk.”
And there was something in his voice — not the clinical tone of duty, but a kind warmth, like someone who had found more than just a patient that morning.
Mercy closed her eyes again, grateful and strangely comforted. For the first time in a long while, as her breathing steadied, the heavy ache in her chest seemed to loosen — just a little.
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Muthoni Thangwa 
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