A Glimpse of Reality

I held his limp little body in my arms as gently yet firmly as possible as we jolted and bounced down the road with dips and mounds that resembled moguls on a downhill ski slope.  At one point I asked the driver to stop the car - I needed everything else to stop moving so that I could tell if he was moving, breathing...living.  The only thing going through my mind during that drive from the COTP compound to the hospital were song lyrics, as I sang to his fading little life,

"Precious Lord take my hand, lead me on, help me stand..."

I alluded to this little baby in my last blog post and included a picture.  When I started to write this post, I imagined I was going to just write about the whole day and share all the details of last Friday. I was going to describe my morning and what I saw and treated during the open gate day, which would have included admitting the tiny new baby into our care for an interim period, just long enough to help him gain some weight and get healthy.  But details just seem trivial at this point.  The short-and-sweet reality of it is, I had just been in "go mode" all day.  Mind rushing, feet moving, accomplishing things and actually feeling like I was beginning to gain some confidence in this nursing role.  As far as transition goes over this past month that I have been here, there have been the moments of homesickness and longing for routine familiarity...naturally.  But the most difficult transition has been learning the nursing role here. Changing jobs. Going from knowing my way around and understanding my job, to feeling completely lost and unfamiliar with all things nursing.  But that morning last Friday, I felt like I was beginning to find and feel a groove. The baby was the last one to be seen at the gate. After his grandma agreed to leave him in our care for awhile, I spent some time assessing him and giving him some initial vitamins and formula according to his malnourished condition.

That "go mode" continued into the afternoon.  Any nurse or medical provider reading this  knows exactly what mode I am talking about - that compartmentalization of being and feeling the affects of something, separated from doing and acting on something in the way we've been trained to in acute medical situations.  That "go mode" was in full gear as I worked with another nurse to try and start an IV in his little baby veins.  The initial attempts were more precautionary.  Our plan had just been to put an NG tube in so that we could feed him formula and establish a feeding schedule, but we figured an IV site would be good to get some initial fluids on board. But then we couldn't get one started.  My first time attempting to start an IV in an infant. Urgency rose a little when we couldn't pass an NG tube through his tiny nares.  Soon even his weak little cry wasn't sounding to our needle pokes - no response to the painful stimuli.  My first attempt at a cranial IV site when we couldn't get anything in his extremities.  Unsuccessful.  Before long, I was climbing into the truck, his body in my arms, wrapped up with a bag of warm water to try and keep his body temperature up, my finger to his temple, the only pulse I was able to find.

"...through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light..."

I honestly didn't think we were going to make it to the hospital in time.  And as I sat in that truck, watching for every breath, that "go mode" began to melt and I felt the weight of what was happening.  That groove I felt earlier was shattered.  I began to see and experience a glimpse of the poverty that was surrounding me.  His mom died in childbirth because she likely delivered at home, unsupervised.  Maternal deaths during childbirth are amongst the top five causes of death in Haiti.  Despite not being delivered at a hospital, where he would have undoubtedly been kept in a NICU, his grandmother brought him to the hospital when he was a few days old because he was sick. But she couldn't keep him there because she didn't have money to pay for his medicines, so she took him home.  That's when she brought him to our gate, because she heard we give out formula to mothers/care givers who are unable to breastfeed. And now we were rushing him back to the hospital, working to help him survive in a world that was working against him.

I went and saw him today.  One week later, he's still hanging in there.  His cry is a little stronger now.  They're still having trouble keeping a patent IV running. But his NG tube is out and he's taking formula by mouth with a syringe.  This is going to be a long bumpy ride for him, but he's a fighter.

"...take my hand, precious Lord, lead me on."   

Hoping and praying that he experiences the same results that two other little guys did that were just in our care.  These twins (pictured below) showed up at our gate, also for the formula program, and we advised the grandmother (since their mother also died while delivering them....) to leave them with us for two weeks so assure that they were drinking enough and gaining weight. I got to put my two years of working night shift into practice again, staying up with them a few of the nights to feed them every 2-3 hours. Seeing them discharged after two weeks was a momentous and happy occurrence for the staff here on two accounts: 1) It was a perfect example of the mission and hope of Children of the Promise, to keep children healthy united with their families, and 2) A full night of sleep for everyone!  Praise the Lord. 

Before

 

After

Sitting together in the same chair as the first picture.

They hardly fit anymore!