So this week started off kind of different. As I expressed before, I am having a bit of trouble adapting to the food here. It is not bad food, just different. As an American we have the luxury of eating what we want, when we want. I have became spoiled to the convenience of only eating food when I enjoy the taste, as opposed to eating food for survival. With that said, I have not been eating enough or staying adequately hydrated since I left the states. Being sleep-deprived, a bit hypoglycemic, and dehydrated does not mix well with high altitudes, heat, and overcoming body odors. While in the middle of rounds in the pediatric unit yesterday I being nauseated, flushed, tingly, very weak, and preceded to pass-out. I spent the rest of the day in bed and waited on by Dolly, a wonderful elderly mission woman that lives in the building beside the guest house. While I felt a bit silly, I do now recognize that I need to take better care of myself and my nutrition while away from home.
Day 2 of this week went much smoother! I spend much of my time in Peds feeling inadequate and under-trained. I've never worked in Peds before and my training in school was minimum with children. The cases that we deal with are quite severe and most are life-threatening! I question most of my decisions and worry many times that what I decide might cost a child it's life! Thankfully I have a team of doctors, residents, and interns that are very bright and are very willing to help and teach me throughout this journey! Today my cases included: a 13 yoa girl who had been struck by lightening and had 75% of her body covered by 2nd degree burns, a 12 yoa girl with sickle cell disease who was admitted during a painful crisis and later developed pneumonia, a 4 yoa girl with pneumonia which was exacerbated by an reactive airway infection, a 4 month baby girl with pneumonia, a 28 day baby girl that lost its mother during childbirth, and a 7 day baby girl that weighs 3.5 lbs and is having increased emesis. Also brought into the NICU today was a child that was born around 28 weeks of gestation weighing only 2 lbs!! She is the smallest baby I have ever seen in person and the chances of her surviving are very slim! There were many births over the weekend, so right now we have about 35 babies in the NICU....and remember these are just the babies that were born needing intensive care and 1 in 5 of these babies won't survive! Two of the children in the pediatrics unit were given a poor prognosis today...there is only so much we are able to do with the resources we have, so both of these children will soon die.
Although I often report on the poor conditions here, I stand amazed at how much the providers are able to do at Tenwek Hospital! The knowledge of the healthcare providers is quite amazing and the amount of care they are able to provide with the resources they are given is astounding. Please continue to pray for the children at Tenwek, and all throughout Kenya! Pray for the healthcare providers...pray that God continues to work miracles through them and that God continues to provide them with the knowledge, the resources, and the strength they need to practice under such poor conditions!
"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33
Stephanie, I love reading your posts! I am so sorry that you passed out. Just be praying that God would change your taste buds and that He would give you a taste for whatever is given to you. He will do it! Believe by faith that He will. Keep remembering that God is bigger than statistics. You have great medical knowledge but He is the Great Physician. He is extremely capable to heal to perfection every child in that NICU. With your knowledge of the body and medicine be praying for specific things to be healed. For example, with the emesis be praying that He would calm whichever organs are causing the child to vomit. For the children with low birth weights and the complications that come with that pray that He would overcome all the low nutrients and give them exactly what they need! He is so faithful and I am loving seeing your heart poured out for these children, we will continue to be praying for you!
ReplyDeleteLacie Bruick