I got to Makhwila today and found out that cholera is in the lower shire. There's only one case confirmed so far but considering that its a pandemic a relatively short distance away that isn't much comfort. For those of you that don't know, cholera is a particularly severe and lethal kind of diarrhea. It is caused by a bacteria, and causes all liquid in your body to be expelled from your butt in what is referred to as "rice water stool." Those who have it lose liters and liters of water each day, and if you don't get as much water as you lose, you will die. The possibility of getting this disease scares the crap out of me. Anyway, I didn't eat until we left and when we did I scrubbed my hands more than Lady Macbeth to make sure I got everything off them.
Today was a typical day, nothing extremely unusual happened. Keep that in mind.
To get away from the (possible) cholera patients nearby, we crowded into a cramped hot room. There were 12 of our 14 scheduled kids stooling, and one of the two healthy kids turned out to be malnourished, so make that 13. Plus we enrolled three new kids, so make that 16. Which is 32 stools to do. Not counting a couple others we needed so make that 36. Busy busy busy. Plus we had to buccal smear, which took more time. All in all, it ran well, busy, hot, tiring, and long. in most respects a manageable day. As always there was a few fat, very healthy babies from families that are probably fairly well off. (By Malawian standards at least)
The not-so-good things, but nonetheless not unusual things were as follows. We had one mom who didn't come for the umpteenth time, and we kicked her out of the program. We have had a lot of those. One person Victor went to fetch was found to be in mourning. One of the twins had died two days ago, and was just buried yesterday. The mom was in no condition to go. As soon as she is able, we will try to have her come for a few more visits, and then we will discharge her. This serves both to get some more data to wrap up the set, and to give the mom a little extra (in the way of incentives) to get through the mourning. We have had far too many of these kids. I'm not sure if I will recognize the remaining twin when she comes back, but the names sounded familiar. Also there were two twins on chiponde today who did terribly over the last two weeks. Both lost a quarter and a fifth of their weights, respectively, and one of them is not eating. Their heads resembled raisins in the way the skin was stretched across their heads and the veins were popping out. The worse of the two had a terrible diaper rash, and both looked like skeletons. We sent both to the Nutritional Rehabilitation Unit, or NRU, were they will be observed and made sure to eat properly. I have a fifty-fifty bet that I will never see one of them, and a twenty-five - seventy-five bet that I never see either. Its not that I don't want them to recover, but when you've seen so many you can kinda gauge how likely it is for the children to survive.
Not meant to depress or scare anybody, I just felt like I hadn't gotten it across well yet.
A day in the life of a volunteer in Malawi.
TTYL
---He who is tired of the cute babies dying.
6 comments:
Wow.
Malawi Mom warned me that this one is depressing - frankly, it goes beyond... It made me cry. The worse part I think is just knowing you can only do so much to help. Wow. What a dose of realism.
Makes me proud, Billy, to know that you are there and doing what you can to help. We're here cheering you on and praying lots for you!
Love you! Nin
I admire you more than you'll probaly ever know. Seeing what you see daily, doing what you do. Whether you think of yourself as one or not, I think most people would consider you a hero, Billy.
-Katelyn
Oh, my. You are doing great work among the sadness. I'm guessing it must be hard sometimes to see the progress amid the harsh realities.
In this instance, Lady Macbeth's washing methods are probably great ones to emulate!
Stay safe.
I just hardly know what to say. I've been thinking for days but ... what do you say to this? Sometimes I wonder what I got you signed up for when I encouraged you to do this. You are handling it far better than I ever could, I think. I'm not sure how you, Joy & Leslie continue to function normally in the face of this devastation.
I agree with Katelyn. Doesn't matter how you much you like to dismiss it. I am endlessly impressed with what you're doing and amazed that it's my kid doing it.
Reading your blogs and talking with you makes me feel so fortunate that I found Project Peanut Butter & Dr. Manary on the internet that night a few years ago. I'm glad to be even a small part of the work you are doing.
I love you!
Billy,
Not sure if you heard, but Michelle is doing a Social Studies project on Project Peanut Butter. Her teacher and group have read your blog and will be taking information from it. Michelle is very excited, like we all are, and proud you are her cousin. You will be hearing from her I am sure.
Post a Comment