Misery Business

Pole Jacob!

Our sweet little boy has been enduring walking pneumonia. He had gotten pretty bad and the tears started to flow. Batilda, our wonderful nurse, decided that the best way to treat him would be to open a direct line and get antibiotics directly into his blood stream. The picture below shows the port where she and our volunteer Ashley (a recent nursing graduate) would administer doses of antibiotics. Jacob was a real trooper. He didn't try to pull out the line and none of the other children would mess with it. They would only say "Shaeeee, Shaeeeee, pole! Pole Jacob. " or they would say "owey, Jacob. Jacob sick." (Pole means 'sorry'.)



Luckily, our little Jacob has recovered. No more harsh wheezing. No more fever. No more miserable times. It may seem a little bit of overkill to open access on a child that should be in bed, under a humidifier, oral meds, and tons of vapor rub. But in this situation, where each adult is in charge of 7 or 8 children, even our children with pneumonia won't get the same attention as they would at home. But our children are so resilient! It makes sense why they don't fight things as complicated as IV's. When you are fighting for your life everyday, you cooperate with the things that keep you alive. I don't mean to be dramatic. Its just the honest truth. Would your child run around with a port in his hand and act like nothing was wrong? Something to think about.

And on another side note of misery, please PRAY for our little Happy girl. I am now at the end of week 5 here at Cradle, and I was bothered by the fact that little Happy wasn't getting any bigger. After two days of hemming and hawwing with myself, I finally asked our nurse to weigh her. I had a hunch that Happy wasn't gaining weight. You can image my sad surprise to see that Happy had LOST over 1 kilo which equated to almost 2.5 lbs! We've been struggling for two days to get extra formula and food in her. But she is now refusing some of her food. She goes for tests tomorrow. Pray pray pray for our little Happy. She is over 7 months old and only 9 lbs. WE MUST GET HER WELL!!