Quite possibly sometimes you forget I'm a nurse. I tell you all about the amazing kids, the friends I have, the faith we're sharing, the tough things I'm facing, and so on. But really...I am a nurse and that's why I'm here. As you can see in these photos, being a nurse in Africa specifically in the Baby House means I do A LOT of giving out syringes of this medicine or that. I wash wounds and give inhalers. Every once in awhile there is the medical emergency that has to be solved, but on a day to day basis listening to lungs, diagnosing a throat infection, and prescribing antibiotics are my daily chores. I have a hard time remembering but in reality these are healthy kids...we are most days more like their moms than their 24 hour nurses!But some days turn out differently...I'm going to tell you 4 stories that all happened within the span of about 2 days.
#1- I hear Mana Meghann said in a kind of nervous "oh my gosh we need Meghann" kind of way. Next thing I know I'm looking into a 5 year old little girl's ear that has a very nice white bead shoved into it. I lay her down in the clinic and by God's grace was able to spin the bead so the hole was facing me and extract it. Yes...kids will be kids!
#2- I walk into the Baby House one morning to see a list of probably 5 or 6 kids who have had
diarrhea that morning. Not just once or twice, they each have about 3 or 4 times written next to their names...poor tias is all I could think. Well then they come rushing through with Lena, who is being potty trained at the moment. She is crying, the tias look miserable, and I just want to run away. They barely get Lena to her little potty in time and I nicely say, let's put her in diapers at least for today. This went on for DAYS...the likes of 2 whole rooms of kids (the youngest of course) each had days of diarrhea. TERRIBLE. I would go in each morning to the white board full of names and times. The kids were thankfully still playing and happy...but the tias were far from entertained. About a week in as it seemed to be going from one child to another we did a mass treating with cotrimoxazole. No joke, I prepared 32 syringes of cotrimoxazole to treat 16 children just for one day of their 5 day treatment. And counted out 100's of pills for the tias, who we also treated. Took me over 2 hours but about 2 days later we were free of diarrhea...PRAISE God for modern medicine!
#3- About 6:30am the on call phone rang. All the tias kept saying was...it's an emergency with Eugenio. I kept asking, what's wrong with him...all they would say is you need to see him. So annoyed and tired I got out of my bed and headed up to the Baby House. What did I find?? Eugenio with a lovely pink bead shoved up his nose. I laid him down, got out the light and tweezers and attempted to get it out. All it did was slip further in. At this point I thought...I could keep trying and possibly lodge it further in or he'll inhale it or.... So I decided...he probably put it in their yesterday afternoon, what are a few more hours going to do? Nothing I decided. So around 8am, a much more humane hour if you ask me I joined Sheri who was able to extract it. Since we have of course had LONG toddler discussions about putting things in holes in your body. 2 beads in less than a week...deserves a stern talking to!#4- Not sure if you remember but in maybe January Erin and I spent a day attempting to figure out what the "white stuff" in Chelsia's ear was. At first we thought it was a maggot, then it became "nothing" according to one of our doctors, and then on extraction we discovered it was actually paper. Well, she came to me crying and pulling on her ear again not too long ago. I looked in to again see "white stuff". I brought her to the doctor who promptly told me it was fungus. Then I left our resident Western doctor take a look as well...she wasn't sure but thought it was probably some dried up pus or something. Well we are on week 3 of ear drops at this point and I'm still able to extract unidentifiable "white stuff" from her ear a few times a week. Seriously??? What is up with African children??
So all of that to say...if you had forgotten I'm a nurse...I AM! Life is funny, busy, sweet, and full of silly little babies and their many medical adventures!
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