It all started with a phone call...wait, scratch that...it actually started with yesterday's blog post, the new arrival, the 18 cases of chicken pox, and my late night hand over of another nurse's responsibility while she is away for the next 5 days. With all that on my mind I went to sleep, alarm set for 6:40...just enough time to get up and go take our new friend's blood sugar before his breakfast and before meeting Aurora, our Mozambican Baby House nurse. But in reality I couldn't sleep...I wonder why?? Oh right...18 babies with chicken pox, a boy would could seize again at any moment and may or may not be diabetic, knowing the next 5 days will be tough to say the least, and my brain was doing a great job of remembering all the tons of things that need to be completed before I leave for the States. The last time I saw the clock it was 2:45.
10 minutes later blood sugar was taken and I was in the Baby House giving meds with Aurora. Let me just stop and say...that woman is an absolute gem. She LOVES the babies. She LOVES the Lord. And, I have missed her with my whole heart! I'm SO excited I have a few weeks with her before I go home!
Anyway the day went on from there...Aurora prepared milk, prepared meds, gave meds, weighed kids, helped out with everything. These are all things I would have needed to do had she not been back today. And to be perfectly honest I would probably still be up there. Because what did I do all day, I took temperatures...seriously I probably took over 100 temperatures today. Every time I turned around there was another little oven clinging to my leg needing to be stuck in a cool bath or given some magic ibuprofen. I never found the time to go home and get my camera...hence the lack of spot covered children pictures. But I do promise to take some tomorrow as I'm just the support and help for one of our new nurses, Rebecca, this weekend. I'm actually excited to be around and just get to love on the miserable bundles of spots. Did I mention there are 20 of them now...yep 2 more joined the ranks. There are only 6 now who have remained unscathed (Latifo, Adilson, Wesley, Marta, Manuel, and Lucia). As I said to my Mom...ABSOLUTE CRAZINESS!
What else happened today you might be wondering...as if 20 cases of chicken pox, tons of high fevers and itchiness is not enough? Well, I continued to check in on our new arrival...the medication we started him on was making him groggy so we have hopefully rectified this, and I'll be keeping a close eye on him over the weekend. Um...I helped out with some communication in the clinic...putting my brilliantly terrible Portuguese skills to use. I will say I made it through 3 telephone conversations without having to pass the phone to someone else. That I am proud of! What else?? Oh yes, I dealt with a finger that got caught in something...just a bit swollen...will be good as new by Monday! Also, one little stinker started with respiratory distress and presented with pneumonia and a temp of 103.8 (39.9)...gave us a bit of a scare...but all is better now. And if you can believe it that's not the highest temperature I saw today.
I finally finished up my normal daily things at 9:30 tonight. God bless Rebecca for giving out meds for me and for cooking me dinner! Again, I would still be up there if it wasn't for her. By 10:30 I was back up there to give out some more ibuprofen and check temperatures...because that's my only job these days. Then I went back at midnight...turns out three of the boys had spiked fevers again (one of them was up to 40.3 or 104.5)...I gave them all ibuprofen and Tylenol (paracetamol) and 2 of them got to have bath time with Mana Meghann at midnight...which no one was really happy about. This was only after one of them had a dirty diaper that he proceeded to wipe ALL over me when I pulled him out of bed. Disgusting! After bath time, came the daunting task of attempting to put them in the cloth diapers they wear. I'm sure tomorrow morning I'll get made fun of...but it was dark and I did my best! No one else was volunteering to get out of bed and help me! Oh well...you live, you learn right?!
So that was my day...I'm sure other things happened that I can't even remember at this very moment. But for now I'm going to bed. I'm exhausted, and I have to get up early again to see off one of our missionaries, Heather, who leaves for England in the morning. Please continue to pray for us, the children, and the tias. Each time I went in there tonight one little miserable boy was crying...I'm not sure he has fallen asleep yet. He's in bed with the tias, but still won't stop crying.
Lord give us grace, compassion, and wisdom!
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