Its been awhile since I've posted about the wards, or specific patients. Not sure why. Partly because I've been working a lot of charge shifts lately. This means I sit at a desk most of the shift doing administrative work and tasky-type jobs. So I don't have "my patients." And the other part being that we've had some sad cases these last couple weeks. D ward has been a hard place to be lately.
Like the ten-year old boy who was in Bed 6. I remember the night he was admitted and came to the ward. He came with his older brother. They both were so happy to be here. He had a tumor growing behind is eye. The simplest way to describe it is that the pressure behind his eye caused the surrounding tissue to pop out. You couldn't see his eye, just bulging exposed red tissue and eye lid. It was quite grotesque to look at, really. In fact, two of the other younger kids on the ward were reluctant to play with him. But, I wasn't :) We played Jenga together on the floor and laughed every time the tower fell down. We hit a balloon back and forth, trying to keep it from touching the floor. He had a beautiful smile.
I was also in charge the afternoon he came back from surgery. There was talk that he might need ICU monitoring because of how much blood was lost in surgery. The good part is that wasn't necessary. The bad part is that they didn't end up doing all that was expected. I will never forget the sadness I felt when the recovery nurse brought him back and told us that they were unable to complete the surgery because he bled too much. It was too risky. They were only able to remove the eye. So not a significant change in his appearance. He will go back home not looking much different. The patient was still sleeping off anesthesia and on a morphine drip for the pain, so he of course didn't know yet. And his brother still had yet to hear the news. He had been eagerly waiting and was pleased to see him come back. I could tell he cared a lot for his little brother. Later, when the doctors rounded, they took the brother aside and told him what happened. He didn't say much. But he didn't have to, it was written all over his face.
Then there are the two babies who are here because they are literally starving. Their bodies are malnourished. One has a cleft lip and the other a cleft palate. Both make it very difficult for them to suck the breast or bottle for the nutrition their bodies desperately need. They are staying here as part of our feeding program. We feed them by the bottle so many milliliters of formula and breast milk every couple hours. They need to gain weight. They must be a minimum of 5 kg before we can operate on them. Their tiny bodies need to be strong enough to survive surgery. Although these babies are cute and fun to hold, they can be taxing on the nurses who care for them. They require a rigid feeding schedule and the mothers need lots of teaching, reinforcement, and encouragement. One mother is receptive to learning, but not always consistent. The other mother appears to be depressed and detaching from her baby. On my shift, the baby's nurse informed me that the baby had been crying, and mom didn't even wake up. The nurse had to go over and wake the mom and tell her to tend to her baby. Not to mention, she had slept the whole night before and had taken a nap earlier! I don't know if she's depressed, detached, or just depending on the nurses to tend to her baby while she's here??
I was looking forward to one of my shifts this last week because I was going to have patients (I'd just worked a string of charge shifts). Plus, I was going to get to orient a nurse that had just arrived. Shortly after our shift started, I took her aside and began explaining to her what our responsibilities were for the shift and how to read a patient's chart/charting. I wasn't too far into this when the call came in that one of our patients who was in surgery, was going to need an ICU bed. Back home this would be no big deal. Here, its a different story. We have ICU nurses, but its not "staffed" every day, waiting for patients. If nobody is in ICU, its closed. This meant that we needed an ICU nurse right away. The only ICU nurse that was on, was our charge nurse. Guess what that meant? She went to open ICU and take over care for the patient, I stepped in as charge, and another nurse came to take over my patients and orient the new nurse. You have to be pretty flexible around here. This patient had a tooth abscess (big infection) removed in the OR. But his face and tongue were so swollen that it was obstructing his airway and he needed to be ventilated (through one of his nostrils) so he could breathe. He's still in ICU, but slowly recovering. Its said that he should come out of this. Moral of the story: if you have a dead tooth, get it looked at right away! (sorry, nurse humor:) )
Then there is the man who, immediately after entering the ward, went straight for his bed and knelt down in prayer. Emmanuel has a neat story of how God brought him to the ship. Remember when I wrote about baby Odilon who died after returning home because he was abandoned due to underlying beliefs?? Emmanuel met Odilon's mother at a market here in town when she and Odilon were returning home. She saw his large facial tumor and told him about the ship. He had been here visiting from Nigeria!! I end with this story, because it has a happy ending! His transformation is huge!! His once very large, bulging cheek is now depressed, a little sunken-in as it heals. He has a feeding tube right now for nutrition until its safe enough for him to swallow. His prayers have been answered!!
I don't understand why God chooses to heal some and not others. Its just hard when their isn't always a happy ending.
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