Good morning! You are probably thinking to yourself "what in the world was Chelsey doing up at 6:20am blogging?!" [or maybe you didn't even notice what time this was published, which is more likely]. The answer should not come as a surprise to you...
KenKen is 9 months old and weighs 7lbs. No, I'm not kidding. He is the length of a 9 month old and the weight of a newborn. He wears newborn clothes. He is skin and bones. He lives in a tent camp with his mom and dad, but has spent the last 3 months in the hospital with "a respiratory problem." One thing I learned quickly here is that nobody really knows anything. You know how in the States when you go to the doctor for a problem, you are pretty darn confident that they know what they are doing when they prescribe an intervention? Well, here all professionals [doctors, nurses, lawyers, etc.] carry around a book or two so they can look things up because they need to refer to them entirely too frequently. [Quick example... a doctor at the hospital I volunteered at a few weeks ago wrote me an order to give a 2 day old baby 4 mL of Tylenol. If that means nothing to you, that size baby should MAYBE get 1/4 mL]. Anyway... so, we got a call asking could we do something for this baby.
His parents do not want to give him up for adoption [hooray!], but they have already lost one baby and they are desperate to save his life. We picked him up 2 days ago with the intentions of getting an accurate medical exam and medication, and getting some meat on his bones and then giving him back to his parents as soon as he is well enough. Yesterday we spent the day in the hospital, running tests and xrays. After a lot of sitting and waiting, I finally went to the lab myself to get the results [if you're white you can pretty much do whatever you want because they think you must be important]. We were all a bit disheartened to learn that baby KenKen's chest xray revealed pretty severe pneumonia in both lungs and his blood work revealed that he is HIV+. We have to take him to a different hospital that has an HIV program to see what treatment options are. However, I don't imagine the drug cocktail that keeps people living relatively normal lives with HIV in America is available in this third world country, and from the looks of him and his health, he may have already progressed to AIDS and be beyond antiviral help.
Today we are meeting with KenKen's parents to tell them the news. We do know that while in the hospital in the last few months he received 4 pints of blood. Hopefully, this is where the HIV came from [which is possible depending on where the hospital got the blood they transfused him with] but more than likely both of his parents are positive too and he contracted it from his mother during birth. We will know after we take them to be tested. Another factor weighing in is that they will have to inform the leader of their tent camp. Each camp has a sort of "mayor" type figure that oversees the people in the camp. The parents had to ask permission to let us take the baby out. Think about how ostracized someone with HIV is in America, and then times that by 10 and thats how bad it is in Haiti. They don't have much medical knowledge, but they know enough to know that HIV is lethal and therefore they don't want to come near someone who has it. So we aren't sure what this news will mean for their living situation. At the very least they will be viewed differently and talked about throughout the camp [yes, Haitian's gossip just like Americans. Its a worldwide epidemic]. Prayers for this whole situation are precious to us.
For now KenKen will continue to stay with us, which means I am so blessed that he gets to sleep in my bed with me at night! Which means I get to bathe him and dress him in adorable pajamas like the ones in the picture above. And no, you can't get HIV from sleeping with someone who has it, or changing their diapers, or kissing their face. I am taking precautions where necessary, and continuing to love this sweet boy with all my heart! We don't know much about what the rest of his life will look like, or how long it will be, but we know one thing.... if he could talk he could boldly claim "I am not forgotten, God still knows my name." Because we know this is true.
I know this is a long post, but it seems that things happen all at once in Port au Prince... sorry haha. Also in the last few days, we took in 6 more children at our Children's Home. They are all siblings.. their mother has 8 kids and is a single mom. Can you imagine that? She came to us and said she could not care for her youngest 6 children any more and wanted to give them up for adoption. Their father was on board also. However, we know all too well how hard it is to make that decision and how likely it is they will change their minds. So we agreed to keep the children for 90 days and then reevaluate with the parents and if then they still want to give them up, they can sign papers releasing their rights. For now, they are getting acquainted with the other kids and getting settled at their new home.
Above is a picture of one of the girls, Ruth. In all there are 3 girls and 3 boys... ages 12, 10, 6, 5, 4, and 2. Wow, right? They are relatively healthy and extremely wellbehaved. As you can tell from this picture, their mom dressed them in their Sunday's best to meet us. So adorable.
On a more personal note, I seem to have been visited by a spider who saw it fit to taste my leg. About 6 days ago I had what appeared to be a possible boil from a staph infection just above my left ankle. I began antibiotics and thought little of it. After a couple days, I realized it wasn't exactly looking like staph anymore so I emailed some pictures to a few of my medical friends in the States. One of my nursing professors [who is more like a mom and friend to me, and is also the one who had the yardsale for my Haiti trip] wrote back and said it looked like a spider bite, then began sending emails to several colleagues and a toxicologist.
These are exerpts from our email conversation:
Professor: Use a pen or marker and draw a line where your leg is red and endurated so you can compare. Also, measure your calf circumferences (compare to each other first, and recheck the affected one daily). Who is watching this, just wanted to know who is caring for you.
Me: thank you thank you! i'll do all of that. it is feeling better, but looking worse i think. at this point, you're the only one looking after this! and me, and a doctor friend in the states haha.we really don't have an american doctor contact in haiti right now, and the haitian doctors have no idea what they are doing. however, i just got a new baby tonight who is going to the hospital first thing in the morning.
Professor: When you get to where the Americans are give them the baby and you find the senior physician, preferably a surgeon. Keep you leg elevated tonight. Any fever? May I share these further pictures with a toxicologist?
Me: yes share them with whoever! there is mild pitting edema above it, pretty moderate below. temp of 98.6. haven't had a fever. should i be freaking out?
Professor: no
Response from toxicologist: Certainly looks like a necrotic spider bite. According to the Army, Haiti is host to a lot of bad things including the brown recluse. If her urine turns red she might be hemolyzing from the spider and needs care ASAP.
Anyway... don't freak out. I had the surgeons look at it yesterday. They changed my antibiotic, told me to take ibuprofen around the clock, clean it with peroxide and soap, and use neosporin on it and keep it covered. They want to see me back on Tuesday, and they say 99% chance it will be better. [other option is it will be MUCH worse and I will need surgery haha]. But this morning the swelling has already gone down remarkably and the red circle is getting smaller... I'm healing. I am also boldly claiming "I am not forgotten, God still knows my name!" Continued prayers are important to me though, and I will let you know how things progress. Oh, and I should add that this whole situation in which my professor who is benefiting none and has no obligation to take care of me went to bat for me and saved my leg [maybe an exaggeration, maybe not haha] reitterated the fact that the Nursing Program at UT is the best. :)
Again, sorry for the length of this post. I'll try to talk to God about spreading out the activity here so my posts aren't so packed haha. Love you!
