We were sitting on my bed talking when I got a message that Erika was calling me collect. I called her back and asked how she was doing. Erika is always calm, relaxed, and generally happy. It was surprising when she said, "Mal." (Bad)
She said Marjory is sick and she doesn't have any money. Erika has never, ever asked for money before. She has turned down gifts. When I ask if there is anything she needs she says no, or she might pray for provision. But she has never asked for money.
She started talking really fast about the baby and I could hear in her voice that she was scared. I told her, "I am going to help you. But I don't understand exactly what you need. So explain it to Fany and I will be right there. I am going to pass the phone to Fany."
Thank God Fany was there. She got the full story. The baby woke up with a fever. She had convulsions and stopped breathing. Erika's Dad did mouth to mouth. Acetaminophen was not bringing the fever down. Someone was in the background yelling that the baby was going to die. Poor Erika!
All I heard was Fany say that the baby had stopped breathing and I went into superwoman mode. I never got dressed so fast in my life. I had an important meeting in 2 hours so I tried to throw together something presentable. Fany packed makeup (which I never put on) into my purse and told me to stop and think about what else I would need for the day.
I grabbed some cash, Fany opened the gate and I sped away, praying that the baby would not stop breathing in my car.
Fany and I had discussed what the best options were. Hospitals have long lines. Clinics are cheap, but you could wait hours there too. We decided our best bet was good old Dr. Gustavo. He's always a life saver, maybe literally this time.
I called Erika when I was close to her house and told her to start walking across the path that leads to the road. She has to hike down a hill, across a gulch and up the other side of the hill. When I pulled up a little boy I recognized was there. He said Erika was coming up the path.
Her Grandmother made it to the car first. She started talking to me about putting leaves on the baby. At the time I was confused, but now I am realizing it was probably a smart thing to do because nobody in Los Pinos, including Erika's family, have any water at all. I am guessing the leaves were a compress to bring down the fever. She was clearly upset, poor lady. She doesn't trust doctors. I assured her that the doctor is my friend, he would see the baby immediately, and we could choose to follow his advice or not. (Who am I to tell a grandmother what to do?)
Erika was pretty calm. Marjory was wearing a winter hat, as does any Honduran baby with a fever. But unlike most Honduran kids with fevers, she was not dressed in 4 layers of clothes and wrapped in a blanket. Yay Erika! Good job!
Marjory was so smiley yesterday, I took a bunch of photos at our women's meeting. Today, she was hardly alert. She was burning up with fever. But she was breathing!
We headed off to the doctor. I thanked God the whole time that the doctor's office is close by. There was only one person ahead of us, and Marjory seemed to be holding her own so we finally were able to relax a little.
The doctor did a thorough exam. He measured everything and moved all of her joints. The hardest part was getting to see down her throat.
Through talking to Erika, he decided that she had begun convulsing due to a high fever. It was over 102 under her armpit and still rising when we gave up trying to keep the thermometer there.
Dr. Gustavo said he wanted to do bloodwork and a urine sample so we would know for sure what is wrong, since the Chikungunya is going around. That's what it seemed to be to me.
We went down to the lab but they said they couldn't get the results today because they are closing early. Boo! Bad luck! We had to go in search of another lab. Meanwhile I was starting to stress out because there was only a half hour before my meeting and we still hadn't gotten any of the meds for the baby.
Luckily, we got a parking spot in a totally sketchy place at some weird hospital that neither Erika nor I had never been to before. The lady at the lab drew blood on the first try! That was the one part that was obviously hard for Erika. She teared up as she held Marjory while they drew blood. (I always hear horror stories about babies getting pricked and pricked and pricked, so I was just happy they got a vein.) Then they asked for a urine sample. We didn't know anything about a urine sample, so we weren't prepared for that. We told them we had to leave, but would return at 3 for the test results and bring the urine sample then.
At the pharmacy they only had 2 of the 3 medicines we needed. Nothing for fever. They even called the surrounding pharmacies. Everyone is out because of the chikungunya. But they did have suppositories, which work faster, so Dr. Gustavo told us to use those instead. We noticed that Marjory had developed a rash on her face, legs and arms. That is the big sign of chikungunya. Oh no.
We were lucky because the ladies at the pharmacy saw that we were clueless, so they helped us get the first dose of medicines into the baby and told us the secrets to suppositories. I got most of her antibiotic all over her dress instead of into her mouth. But we got the 8 drops of some other medicine into her and the suppository successfully inserted for fever.
I made it to the meeting, which was horrible. Then Erika and I headed to my house to bathe the baby since she has no water at home. By then, the medicine had kicked in and Marjory was looking much better. Erika was more relaxed.
We didn't even go inside my house. Fany ran a bath for the baby and Erika got Marjory all clean. Then we attached the bag for the urine sample and headed back to the lab. I could see from the results of the bloodwork that the white blood cell count was way high. We took the results back to Dr. Gustavo and he showed that to Erika, explaining what they should be and where they were. He asked if we had gotten the meds, said she should be fine with exactly what he already prescribed. But Erika needs to watch out for seizures in the future. They may never come back. But it's a possibility.
He also told talked to Erika in a very frank, yet kind way about having a baby so young. He told her she, herself, is too small. She cannot get pregnant again. No letting passion take over when a nice boy says all of the right things. It made me think Dr. Gustavo is a good father. We already know he is a great doctor.
I dropped Erika off at home and headed up to the retreat where the team from Salt Lake is staying. They are winding up their week and getting ready for the last day of serving the kids, so they were feeling tired.
We had a nice dinner and gabbed for a little while. They were all ready for bed, so I headed back down the mountain.
We will get together again on Saturday before they leave.
Here are some photos of Marjory yesterday, before she was sick:
 |
| Erika and Marjory |
 |
No comments:
Post a Comment