Illness at the Camp and My Illness

 
Our project with the IDPs is officially called Upendo ya Jirani- love for your neighbor.  It’s sobering to walk around the camp and imagine what it would be like to live their lives.  But I think that is exactly what we are all asked to do.  This Monday at the IDP camp, before we started seeing patients, I shared a short Bible story. I’ve been trying to work my way through the book of Mark, sharing about Jesus’ life.  I paraphrased Mark 10:17-31 and a nurse swiftly translated it into the most common tonal tongue of this population, kibahda.  I’ve gotten into the habit of asking those present a lot of questions along the way, because as many of you all know, with translation it is impossible to tell if the message is actually getting across since I know NO kibahda.  The story goes that there was a rich young man who comes to Jesus and asks, what must I do to inherit eternal life?  Jesus responds by telling him to follow the 10 commandments.  The young man says that he’s kept the commandments since he was a young boy.  “Then Jesus looked at him and loved him. ‘One thing you lack,’ he said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me’.” Mark 10:21. When we got to the part about it being easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter heaven, people started laughing!  I shared that Jesus is asking us to give up anything that keeps us from him, and keeps us from loving his people.  Honestly, I wanted to skip over this entire passage!  I stood before them as the ‘rich man’.  I said that I would pray that God would help them renounce things in their lives that keep them from him and I asked that they would pray for me, that I would love God and others more than the comfort of my riches.  I didn’t know what reaction to expect, but I was surprised by their reaction to my prayer request.  There was no reassuring me.  No one said, “You’re doing great!  You don’t need prayer for that!”.  They all looked at me sympathetically, nodding, agreeing that I, and those of us who are rich in the world, need to be willing to give it all up to follow God, believing that our riches actually belong to God.   

 

Each Wednesday, I (Anna)  go to the hospital and check in with all of our UPENDO patients.  I try to make sure they are getting the care that they need, that they are benefiting from our kitchen program and that they feel well taken care of.  I tend to know many of them since I refer many of them from the camp.  It can be a highly discouraging process.  I often find that acutely malnourished children in desperate need of therapeutic milk have not yet received it 2 days after their arrival, even though protocol mandates they receive it in the first 30 minutes after their arrival.  The barriers are endless, maybe some of the nurses don’t know how to administer it, or there is none available, or no one could find purified water to mix it, or no spoons or cups are available…. And the list goes on.  It’s hard not to despair, not to lose my calm, hard to be a servant leader in this context.  I’m stretched so much every day and given so many opportunities to choose to love instead of blame, to be curious instead of judgmental.  I wish I always made the right choice!  Here are some of the UPENDO patients I saw at the hospital last week:

These mamas are bringing 5 day old twins to try to get their mom to produce milk.  She fell very ill with heart failure right after their birth.  Amazingly, Patrick and others were able to bring her back from the brink of death and she is now at home with her babies.

 

We started providing formula for the twins while Mom was too sick to produce milk, but it sounds like the babies are actively nursing and some milk might be coming!  Likely we will have to continue partial supplementation.

Mercianne's mom brought her to see me complaining that over the last 2 weeks her appetite has diminished and in the last 5 days she'd stopped eating and now had stopped drinking. Her body is also swelling up.  We call this Acute Severe Malnutrition.  At the hospital she refused to drink the fortified porridge and then refused fortified milk.  Thanks to our new Serge missionary colleague, Mark, he recognized that she wasn't going take it by mouth so spent hours looking for an NG tube and supervising its placement and administration of feeds.  She is alive today due to so many peoples wisdom, skills and efforts, and mostly because of God's love for her!

On a completely different note, I wrote most of this update a few days back and then laid it down because I started getting ill.  On Monday I had a cough and fatigue, Tuesday got a little worse and by Wednesday I was short of breath, had a fever (even on Tylenol and ibuprofen) and in general just felt awful.  Patrick took me to our hospital and I got labs and an xray and right away we discovered bilateral pneumonia.  Right away I was put on oxygen as I got more short of breath (I am actually on oxygen as I write this, just for a little relief), stuck with IVs, and slammed with injections. Basins were held for my vomiting, and many many kind colleagues came by to see how I was doing.  I continued to worsen Wednesday through Thursday and remained stably bad into Friday.  I was pretty much oxygen dependant, too nauseous to eat, muscle and joint aches all over, having a horrible sore throat so wasn’t sleeping at night and my fevers were breaking through tylenol and ibuprofen.  Praise God that when I woke up this morning my fever had broken and I had a little energy.  I tried myself off of oxygen and I was short of breath, but decent.  If I had gotten any worse, or if I had remained in that state much longer, I likely would have been medevac’ed to Kenya. Phew!  I’m really struggling to get some solid clumps of mucus mixed with old blood out of my left lung, and that’s made today pretty miserable.  They get up to my vocal cords and then can’t get through them, andthen I can’t breathe well and can’t talk…. Please pray for continued healing.  I’m remembering how Monday I asked the IDPs to pray for me (that I would be willing to give up everything to follow Jesus).  But now I’m wondering if God provoked me to ask for prayer also because he knew the bad illness that was coming and wanted me to see once again that He sees everything, and oh, does he love us.  

I don't know if you can see, but all that white fluffy stuff in the bases of the lungs should be black, but instead shows bilateral pneumonia.  By the time I got home almost all my breath sounds on the left were barely audible with rales (indicating pneumonia).

Our Congolese friends have taught us so much about how to care for and be a friend to those who are ill.  Neighbors, nurses from the Shalom clinic, and hospital staff kept coming by to pray with Patrick for me, bring fruit to stimulate healing, and stand at my bedroom door saying, 'Polé'. Missionaries worked together to bring meal after meal as Patrick spent most of his time coordinating my care.  We felt very loved, but were quite scared about which way my illness would turn.  Here I'm on oxygen and getting a new IV for meds.

I wanted to save this picture for last as an encouragement.  This Mom has delivered 4 babies.  Only 2 of the babies are living.  2 of them died within a day or two after birth.  Likely she didn't have prenatal care in the past and something like hypoglycemia wasn't noticed.  When I did my rounds through the services, I came to her.  She shared her story with me and exuded complete joy at the possibility of giving birth (by cesarian) at our hospital and to have a healthy, beautiful baby.  She gave me the honor of naming him.  I chose Shukuru- 'thankful'.  It is actually also Isaiahs middle name, and rings so true to her heart toward God in this season.