Crazy Wednesday!

LENGTH WARNING!! Grab a cup of coffee - it's story time!

Last week Wednesday was a pretty crazy day for me. I don’t get out much these days since most of the rest of my world is not A/C’d and the heat makes me feel quite sick. BUT, circumstances being what they were, I ended up “out” almost all day.

Background first: Tuesday night we had a doctor friend stay with us. She observed some symptoms in our helpers’ child that alarmed her, and with permission from her mother, did an exam. After talking more about her daily activities, etc., our friend recommended we get her in to see a doctor as she suspected that Melania possibly has TB. As her parents’ employers, we have responsibility for at least part if not all of her medical bills. Her mom was saying that she was going to have to wait until she got her next months’ wages to take her in to a doctor but on our friends’ recommendation, we decided to take her in first thing Wednesday and try to get treatment started right away if it indeed was TB. We hoped that she would then be referred to a specialist and hopefully be able to get on the (excellent) government program which provides the meds free of charge (the meds are from the WHO and our friend said they were better than what we could get otherwise for her).

Well, we left home at 9 AM to go to the government clinic. We registered her and were told that she needed to bring Melania in every single Saturday to monitor her until she could prove that she had had all of her immunizations (she had had them, just not at a public clinic.) Ros said THAT was not going to happen!! I don’t blame her…

Then, long story short, the nurse was surprised at how underweight Melania was (7.3 kg –or 16 lbs- at 2 years 1 week old). She’s a peanut, but a little livewire, so since her parents are small too, and she’s never sick, we had not really seen this as an alarming thing. It is, though, a possible symptom of TB (among other ones she also exhibited).

Ros, her mother, got a bizarre 15 minute lecture from a young-looking (read: probably not a mother herself) lady, finger shaking and all, about how to feed her child (not like Ros doesn’t feed her multiple times a day – she’s very capable). (Can you picture me sitting there trying to understand what she was saying? I don't think I've concentrated as hard in a long time as I did that day.) She recommended that Ros add 1 tablespoon of cooking oil and 1 teaspoon of sugar to each bottle of milk that Melania drinks, among other recommendations. Then we were sent to the Doctor’s waiting room. (That was when Ros said she was never coming back to this clinic again! I agreed with her – as long as we could get the meds for her for free elsewhere.) The doctor, on the other hand, did a short exam and immediately referred her to a specialist (whose office didn’t open until late afternoon on the other side of town). Ros and I agreed to leave at 4 to go to the specialist.

I went home, and a friend called to see if she and the kids could stop in for a bit to see the house. They had helped us move in but hadn’t been over in the 3 weeks since to see it without boxes everywhere. We had a nice chat and the kids were playing when Spencer showed up, saying, “Mom, look at this – my eye was wet so I wiped it with my shirt.” Brown stains on his shirt. I looked at his eye and noticed that the growth on his eye (see photo) was bleeding. (Background on growth – we sent photos to 3 docs and got 2 different diagnoses – hemangioma from 2, and granuloma from the 3rd who actually saw it in person. The 3rd doc said we could just remove it ourselves but we hadn’t done it yet.) Below are the shots we sent the doctors via email.




I immediately tried to call our doctor friend who was still staying with us, but couldn’t get through – she was on another call so Josh sterilized the scissors and tweezers and cut the growth off. (Our friend later said we shouldn’t have done that – to call her first but we’d tried. Just moved too fast…) Once it was removed, we couldn’t get the bleeding to stop. (Turns out it WAS a hemangioma and not a granluoma.) I continued to try to reach her, and when we finally got her, she came right away. She tried for an additional 30-45 minutes to get the bleeding to stop, but couldn’t. Then we started looking for silver nitrate which she said could help her to stop the bleeding but we couldn’t locate any. Her clinic/hospital is several hours away from here so she didn’t have any of her equipment to help us. We decided to take him into a local clinic. I was so thankful that she could accompany me as medical terminology is something I have not picked up much of yet. Since she practices in-country, she knows not only what’s best procedurally but also can communicate with the doctors!

We arrived at the clinic and were seen as soon as the paperwork was done. Ultimately they called in a surgeon and they decided to stitch the wound (was about 2 hours of trying to get the bleeding to stop). Spencer got 2 stitches on his eyelid. He was a real trouper! No crying or fear, and NO anesthetic! He stayed calm and conversed with his new friend (the doctor). They were making up stories of what he could say to impress the girls a little later in life when they ask about the scar on his eye! :)
Laying on the stretcher in the Operating room.
His beautiful stitches - it's healing well!

We arrived home after 2:00 and I had a bit of time to put my feet up before our 4:00 departure for the specialist. We left at 4 and ended up sitting in a traffic jam for probably 20 minutes just a few short meters from the doctor’s office. We went to the WRONG office first, waited a while to talk to the receptionist, and then were directed to another office that was to open at 5:00 –in 15 minutes. We were the first patients of the day so that was encouraging. We had a seat in the waiting room and waited. And waited. And waited. (No surprise there...) At 6:00 the doctor finally arrived. In the mean time the waiting room had filled up, the power had gone off for about 20 minutes and come back on again, and we’d almost exhausted ways to keep Melania occupied! The doctor did a short exam, then prescribed a vitamin syrup and said if nothing had changed (meaning if she hadn’t gained weight) in 1 week, to bring her back for a chest x-ray. Personally, I think he was putting us off because the waiting room was full and he didn’t have a lot of time for us. Guess we’ll be going back this week again.

I arrived home at 6:30, an hour and a half after my 5:00 PM meeting had started (Josh attended too so that was not a huge problem). I knew I'd be late but didn't think I'd miss the whole thing! We had dinner all together with our team after the meeting and then went home.

Long, hot day, but full of God’s grace and strength to get through it. I enjoyed conversations with both our doctor friend and our helper Ros as we sat in waiting rooms. I was blessed to see how the Lord provided the help of our friend when maneuvering that situation with Spencer would have been infinitely more stressful had I had to do it myself. What a provision from the Lord!! And my teammates were very gracious about my not showing at the meeting that I usually end up hosting! I was very tired, my ankles were swollen, but I was carried along by the Grace of God. Praise Him!!