3 AM!

That is right...at 3 AM last night my phone rang. I've gotten calls at 10pm even midnight before but I think 3am wins! The tias in the Baby House nicely introduced themselves and told me Vasco was sick. I promptly said...I'm coming. But then I stopped and asked...what's wrong with him?? Thinking that if there was nothing really wrong I was not going to get our of my warm bed at 3am when it was pretty windy and chilly (for Africa that is) and walk all the way to the Baby House...that was the logical part of me, not the caring motherly nurse that loves little Vasco. Anyway, they said, "He's breathing a lot." All of this in Portuguese of course. So I told them I was on my way once more. I jumped up threw on a jacket, zipped it up (to cover up the girls of course), found my flip flops in the dark and took off. (That makes it sound like I jumped in the car to get to him in a hurry...in reality I opened up my front door and walked across the playground/sand pit to where he lives.)
When the tias unlocked the Baby House door for me they were all smiling. May I remind you it was 3 AM and I was FAR from smiling! I thought...wow they are chipper but went to the task of assessing and responding to what was going on with Vasco. As soon as they said he wasn't breathing well I anticipated exactly what I would be walking in on. This is the 3rd call in a year I have gotten like this..."Vasco is breathing a lot," is always the description of him. A little background for you medical people...Vasco is an almost 4 year old little boy who's first presentation of a chest infection is respiratory distress. Each time I have been called he's been retracting to his backbone and "breathing a lot" as the tias like to tell me. We have diagnosed him with asthma in the last year, but he continues to have frequent exacerbations even though he is on an inhaler morning and night. Anyway, I tried out his inhaler to solve last night's issue...no such luck. Next came a nebulizer which did the trick! After all of that activity and using our nebulizer that sounds like a jackhammer, to put it lightly, in a place where 34 other babies were sleeping (NOT ANY MORE)...and remember its about 3:45AM at this point. Anyway, after the nebulizer Vasco was looking better. I quickly wrote up some medical notes, a note for Aurora to assess Vasco in the morning (our Mozambican nurse that would be in at 7:30), and then I said to Vasco..."Do you want to go back to sleep?" His answer was, "No Mana Meghann, I want to eat food." I laughed and said...sorry buddy you need to go back to sleep for a little bit before it's breakfast time. He looked at me funny, but followed me back out to the tias.
At this point it hit me...disaster averted, I should ask them what was so funny when I walked in at 3AM. They looked at me when I asked and all started laughing again and someone in a small voice said, "Ajude-me" or "Help me". They then started to tell me that before they called me cute little Vasco had laid in bed and said, "Tia ____, adjude-me" filling in the blank with each tia's name until they woke up. I know what you are thinking...why is this funny? Remember it was 3AM, remember he lives in a place with 35 other babies and 5 tias who care for them, remember he is only about 4 years old, and remember it was 4AM now...I hope you are laughing now! I then went on to tell them that he wanted food not to go back to sleep...seriously they were basically rolling on the floor in laughter!
All I can say is...at least I work with women who find humor in the adorable children they mother and serve! And praise God for a nebulizer machine that saves lives and continually saves us from traveling to the hospital that is 45 minutes away in the middle of the night!!!