Miracle

I'm far too exhausted to write much tonight but wanted to say hi and tell you briefly about this week.

This week has been a mixture of the awful and the amazing.  On Tuesday morning, an 8 month old baby arrived at our gate with his parents, in severe respiratory distress.  In England I would have called the whole paediatric team or at least a senior paediatrician to lead his care.  All of a sudden that job fell to me, together with Vicki and Grace.

He was a very sick boy and we have no oxygen or any of the respiratory medicines I'm used to using.  We got a positive malaria test on him and decided he needed IV medication and IV fluids to keep him hydrated while he fought for his life with his breathing.  Trouble was none of us had ever put an IV line in a baby before.  And this was the toughest of the tough--black skin, slightly dehydrated veins, a chubby little baby.  Grace has had more experience with IV's in bigger people than me so she tried a couple times first, with the rest of us praying hard.  She couldn't get it.  At first I didn't want to even try--I've assisted with hundreds of IV lines in babies but only successfully put them into a few bigger kids and that was with difficulty.  I never got good at it.  But desperate times call for desperate measures and I was helping Grace look for a vein all over that baby.  (His name is Kamis)

Finally, I tried a vein we thought we saw on the back of his hand and failed.  We kept looking and praying.  Finally I thought I could see another faint vein in the back of his same hand.  It depended on the light and I wasn't sure and I didn't want to ruin our chance at that vein by going in the wrong way.  In the end I decided to go for it.  Grace was praying "Lord guide her hand" in my ear and I was desperately trying to believe that God could help me do the impossible but I didn't think it would happen.  It was such a stab in the dark.  Well, it happened and I fully believe it was a miracle.  I got a good IV line in that remained intact for the next 30 hours while Kamis had continuous infusions of IV fluids with malaria med. in it.  We nearly lost the line a few times when we had to fiddle with the bandaging, etc. but it kept going amazingly well.

That was miracle number one.  Then there was the issue of severe respiratory distress with no meds. to treat it.  We knew he could become exhausted, hypoxic, fall unconscious, and stop breathing at any time.  We had to check his IV line every hour and replace the medication every few hours.  He stayed in the empty tukul next to mine with his parents taking turns sitting up and holding him all night.  There were massive spiritual issues too.  They had taken him to a witchdoctor the day before and he had been given some traditional medicine that his parents felt had made his breathing worse.  Their village is 2 hours walk from D..

We knew that it would truly take a miracle to save this baby.  We did a lot of praying that night.  Grace and I stayed up for most of the night to look after his IV and to pray.

Titus, one of our watchmen who is a church elder, translated for us whenever we needed him, and with his help I had to tell the parents that we were doing everything we could but that we could lose him that night and would be praying for God to save him.  Then Titus led us in prayer for him in Mabaan and that was a powerful moment--he was completely in God's hands.

Well, that little boy kept chugging away all night long-he just kept going.  His parents were great.

Vicki woke up very early to take over so Grace and I could sleep but the tukul where they stayed is right next to mine so I was listening for his breathing and coughing half the time and just praying they would keep going.  I woke up at 7 and went over to check him and found him awake on his Mom's lap, still with significant difficulty in breathing but MUCH improved.  It was an amazing moment--to see that God had heard and answered and saved his life!  We had a chat with them later that morning with Butros, our language helper translating.  They recognized that God had saved his life and said that they would not be taking him to the witchdoctor any longer.  The father said people had tried to get them to go back to the witchdoctor when his breathing got worse but that they had come to us instead.

We had to keep him on the IV all yesterday too because he was still working to hard to be able to feed much and vomitting sometimes.  We sure weren't about to lose that IV line since we had it!  They had to stay a second night because of it but his breathing was much better and we only had to check him every 3 hours or so.  At 12:30 am we were able to disconnect the drip because he was doing better with feeding and keeping fluids down.

Last night I had suggested to them that they could probably leave in the morning but stick around D. until the next day so they could bring him back if he got worse again.  But the next morning he had improved so drastically that we were able to send them home to their village with some oral meds to finish.  His respiratory rate went right down to normal and he was all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed!  Man, he was cute--I got some good pictures of them before they left.

We all prayed with them before they left and praised God for saving him.  It was emotional to see them go, after 2 days with us and such an intense time.  I feel blessed to be here and to be seeing God at work!

Needless to say we are all exhausted today and behind in all of our language learning stuff, laundry, everything.  We made a schedule for ourselves this week to allocate a rota and times for seeing patients and cooking dinner, etc. but that all went pear-shaped this week.  2 of us at a time have been seeing patients from 2-4 or 5 each afternoon but the number of people coming--some sick, some not is getting overwhelming and taking away from our language-learning focus.  They are coming from all over M. county.

Today we got an email from Rob giving us a rather drastic solution to the problem because we are not supposed to be a clinic yet.  He's suggested that we volunteer at the government-funded clinic in B., the market town 3 miles away.  We've been trying to send people there as much as we can, although the care there leaves a lot to be desired by all counts.  However, the 2 medics there know and like Grace and have recently given her lots of dressing supplies.  It's a way of building a relationship with the B. clinic and getting patients to go there to be seen until we officially can open the health centre and getting ourselves off the compound and away from the pressures of people coming.  We are going into B. tomorrow anyway so we're going to stop by the clinic and put Rob's suggestion to the medics and see what happens.  Something's got to change here.

Please pray for another patient we're worried about--8 year old Johanna with severe pneumonia and difficulty in breathing.  He's come 3 days in a row and the oral antibiotics have not done a thing for him.  Today Vicki went into B. to the little pharmacy and managed to get some antibiotic injections.  She gave the first one this afternoon and he'll come every day for an injection until he improves.  He really is very sick and if he wasn't in rural S., he'd be in hospital on oxygen for sure.  He needs the touch of God too.  He's also from a village several hours away.

Stephen, the boy with the bad finger injury that I asked you to pray for, finally headed home to his village yesterday.  Sorry to be graphic but the dead end of his finger finally came off so new tissue can grow over it and his dad will do the dressing changes at home.  Another miracle that he didn't develop a severe infection from a dirty axe chopping off part of his finger, including the bone.  We were very glad he could go home--the dressing changes were a nightmare, especially for Grace who did most of it.

Well, again this was supposed to be quick, but there are too many stories to tell!  Sebsibe managed to fix the problem with my inverter today so I can charge my computer in my house again.  My sat phone is dead--it won't charge at all.  I don't know what the problem is but I may have to wait till Nairobi to get it fixed.  Vicki and I are doing email with my computer and her phone.

In spite of all the challenges here, I'm very happy and know that this is right where I'm supposed to be.