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Nursing Student Raising Money to Treat AIDS in Africa and Honor Ailing Father
While Amanda Baxley has led a particularly driven life--knowing, for instance, that she was destined for medicine--her jewelry making started casually enough. She had no idea that the dozens of earrings she's been making, crafted on study breaks as she works toward her graduate degree at MUSC, could be a means of funding toward a trip to treat Aids in Africa.
"My boyfriend actually gave me the idea, when I decided to go to Africa, to sell some of them," Amanda said. The decision itself came after she viewed commercials about the One Campaign, an initiative to stop global AIDS. What she saw centered on African AIDS, and after some research, she discovered African Impact, an organization that sends volunteers to Cape Town, South Africa, and to Zambia.
"It's become my passion," she said. The challenge, of course, will be raising the $3,500 to $4,000--which covers airfare, lodging, and meals--to serve. This price includes nothing else, not even the additional excursions, such as one to a lion rehabilitation facility, offered by African Impact. Raising the money is a unique challenge because the end goal is itself unique. Instead of taking time to rest or seek steady work after her Boards next January, Amanda wants to go the heart of a continent's distress. Instead of aspiring toward a few days of sleeping in or her name on a glass door, Amanda's greatest desire is to be stationed in an orphanage for children with AIDS.
"Twelve hundred African kids are orphaned by AIDS every year," she said. "There are 22.5 million people living with AIDs in Africa, and1.6 million die with AIDS in Africa per year. One of the choices is to work in an orphanage of all kids that have AIDS, to give them medical assistance, to show them how to manage and how not to spread it. I know I can't do anything by myself. But I have an amazing life, and I want to share it."
The growing crisis drives Amanda to serve Africa as soon as possible, but there is another reason for her haste. It involves, in multiple ways, her father Dr. Luke Baxley. The doctor, who ran a Hartsville practice and volunteered at the County Free Medical Clinic, now directed by his wife Kathy, has Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. This rare, degenerative brain disorder is incurable and becomes fatal within the span of a few years after onset.
"I may not have a long time because I might have the disease that my dad has," Amanda said. "I have a fifty percent chance of having it. So, I want to help people for as long as I can. I'm not going to go to medical school, get out when I'm forty, and have 10 years to do something."
Amanda describes her father as a major source of inspiration for her initiative, an example of a person who used his life to help others.
"My dad is an amazing person," she said. "And I grew up in his office, just watching him interact with people. And I wanted to do something like that. I wanted to follow in his footsteps."
Those who know Amanda say she's been doing just that. Her passion for medicine--for people--is palpable. Though she'd planned on medical school, which her brother is currently attending, she found that the close patient contact and quicker career path inherent in nursing makes a good fit for her.
"I worked as a nurse's assistant for a year and a half, and you have so much patient contact. You're the person they go to for everything. And you get to share with them, and you connect on an emotional level," she said. "I just fell in love with people. I love people. I love kids. I want to go into pediatrics, so just seeing all those kids in Africa just makes me tear up every time I think about it."
After earning degrees in biology and psychology at the College of Charleston, Amanda uses her many skills and experiences to continue showing people love. Kathy said that Amanda is often called upon to handle uncooperative patients with mental disorders. She calls her daughter's calming effect on them a "God-given gift."
"You've just got to be willing to get down on the ground and eat sherbert with them," Amanda said simply. This reminds Kathy of Luke, who would make children he was treating comfortable by letting them peer into his ear with his light.
Amanda, too, wants to show children light--to show the destitute and sick children of Africa hope. And so she is hoping that her jewelry will earn her some money toward this end.
To purchase some of Amanda's jewelry or to make a contribution toward her trip, community members can take a look at the fare at Darlington's Free Medical Mlinic, call Amanda at 843-858-0644.
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