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| Some of the 212 students I look after and look for |
More things to ponder!!! INGRID
I have written to some of you privately about what I see in the hospital. I know every time I go to the maternity ward I will see some new amazing thing, so I try not to look. Because we have started a new rotation of students and these students are fresh to the ward they show up, pay attention, and are eager. Because the nurses on the wards are use to the other students who are more mature and have been on the wards for longer (but are now preparing for tests) they think the new kids have the knowledge and have them do way more then they should. I try to run interference and see, what they are doing on the wards. Since maternity is so large, 2 wings for C sections with 15 beds in each ward plus floor space, 1 wing for mothers who lost the babe after C sections, children who were defiled and female gyn diseases (eg cervical cancer, tumors, and a whole variety of thing you read about but only see here) then the delivery ward. 4 rooms to birth and the whole large floor to lay on or walk on as you labor I try to do a little at a time. The delivery room floor is also where the mothers who had the baby earlier are laying out the 12 hours they stay before going home, unless you are hemorrhaging then you get a bed, or you deliver before the bed is full again, we have 4 of those beds otherwise you get the floor. So, I go in a curtained room in delivery where the mom's actually deliver to where I see students going to see what they are observing. (Make sure they aren't doing some “Procedure” they would have no idea on how to do....)
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| Some pictures of healthy babies |
I come upon the midwife with an ambu bag (what you give breaths with in CPR) and a very limp baby.
She is bagging (giving breaths) with the bag and then massaging the chest to get the air out. I watch see there is no heart beat and start chest compressions. Just like Sheri Hittesdorf taught me at Sleepy Eye Hospital just a few months back. I remember all the equipment we use to have out for each birth at Sleepy Eye and all the training I had on drugs and umbilical lines and checking sugar and all we have is an ambu bag, a midwife who sorta knows how to use it, an adult stethoscope, me, and some students watching. What amazed me is how common place this whole thing seemed. The Holy Spirit whispered to go look, the midwife was doing what she knew to do and I found myself doing chest compressions. When I realized what really, really, I was doing I started to pray. We worked on the baby about 5-6 minutes her heart started beating and she started breathing on her own. By now the adrenaline is rushing where before I didn't feel any of that. Just that calmness that comes when I pray or cook or go for a walk when I am wound up. I decided not to count students in this ward today and left onto another ward on the other side of the campus so I could have a walk...
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| A set of healthy boys |
The stations of the cross were later that Wednesday, at the Catholic Missionary house who does the radio program. She does the kids version so the kids of the other missionary can participate. (This is the simple form of the stations) After each station there are questions and when Jesus's falls and is helped the question is have you ever helped someone up who needed that help. Smack! the incident of earlier comes flooding back. Now the question, did I do the right thing?
Next day, I go to the ward, Dr is doing rounds on 38 C Sectioned women and start looking for the baby and mother of yesterday. One of the students who was watching yesterday and speaks Lugbara helped me. We found the mom and baby who she named INGRID. I unwrapped the baby and she was seizing. Mom said she was to get antibiotics and she did after birth (they put IV's in as they have no equipment for umbilical lines) but the IV fell out and no one put one back in for the mess. It is now 20 hours later She was septic from too long a birth process and having swallowed her own BM during birth. Babys' do that when in distress. Little Ingrid had severe cerebral palsy from no oxygen for too long after birth. I held her and talked to mom. She is 19, 1st time mom, and she knew, but needed to hear baby was not going to be all she hoped for. She asked me hard questions. I recalled a dad in St Cloud asking me those same questions 25 years ago and I knew the baby had cereal palsy but I lied. Sometime it is nice to be older and learned how it feels to lie and carry it around so you don't want to do it again. I could tell her the truth while little INGRID continued to have seizures.
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| a healthy set of girls |
Now again the question, did I do the right thing? Do any of you ask that question? Did I do what I was suppose to do? Was that your voice God, why would you want a life to suffer the injustice of being in a place where she has limited chance of survival? Was it really my selfishness to do the chest compressions because I could, because I know how, but I don't live with the consequences of the decision? Later in the day, 2 pediatricians from MN here visiting their daughter a education PC volunteer came to see the hospital for a tour. Margie (from Hennapin ER) looked to at INGRID and the conclusion was the same, her Cerebral Palsy was severe and her survival may be short. She was breast feeding well so she had good suck and could nourish herself. The small village this mother is from is where Ilse (the PC volunteer) is from. Her mother was encouraged that the child had another pair of eyes to watch and help the mom to see value in this little life.
Have I come to any conclusions? Have I answered any of these questions for myself? And really is this about me? It sure felt like it...
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| The mother and sister of the 1st baby |
The Reilly’s sent me a TIME magazine and Rick Santorum was interviewed ( I didn't know he was running for president) with his daughter in his arms. She looks to have a disability and from the article I gathered he lost a child who was born and had severe handicaps. His statement reminded me all life has value and they as parents enjoyed the time as brief as it was with their child. If God did not want that child to live nothing I could do would change it, so it wasn't about me but about seeing his GRACE to be part of a miracle. Thank YOU LORD for your GOOD GOODNESS and for GOOD FRIDAY and the forgiveness you gave for a selfish sinner like me.
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| Love from Arua Happy Resurrection Sunday |
