I sit in the hospital room, watching Linda color a book with the crayons that I brought. She sits in a white metal hospital crib with one side pulled down all the way. I’m sitting in a lawn chair next to the crib, looking around the room or at Linda, especially when a cough or funny sound comes from her.
In the room there are seven beds, five of them are twin size beds, two of them cribs. All the twin beds are occupied, three with mothers and their children and the other with a grandmother and her granddaughter. One crib is occupied by Linda, the other one empty. It, based on what the nurse just suggested (well more like demanded of me!), will probably house me in a little while as my bed…once the eyelids get heavy.
It’s now 9:00pm and most of the moms and the grandmother are sleeping. There is one mother and her son who are still awake. The mother tells me that her son, Kiprop, is suffering a bad chest cold. He can’t get comfortable and is constantly coughing and gasping for air. His mother is trying to be patient but loses it from time to time by “clicking” at him (which is a not so nice thing here – shows and relays that you’re annoyed or angry with the person) or tells him sternly to “BE QUIET!!”
I ask Linda if she is tired; she says yes. I have her lie down and pull the blanket up to her chin. I tuck her in nice and tight, kiss her all over the face and say good night. She laughs and then snuggles in to her blanket and closes her eyes.
Four minutes later, the silence in the room is broken by a nurse and her cart. She has come to do the evening medication run for the children. Her bedside manners definitely need quite a bit of tweaking. Another nurse comes in; I like her. She’s really nice and gentle with the children; she even calls Linda “sweetie”. Perhaps because I’m there but she’s nice to all the others too. The mothers and grandmother spend the next few minutes pulling out the medication and medical “chart” (which is more like a piece of paper) of their children.
Here, the parents/guardians are responsible to buy all necessary medication and equipment (i.e. needles, IV necessities, etc.) they are also responsible to bring/buy their own bed sheets, blankets, cups and eating utensils for overnight stays. Nothing, except the bed, the mattress and the nurses/doctors is supplied by the hospitals.
I watch the nurse hook a bag full of blood on the wall and connect the IV into the little boy on the bed next to Linda. He’s no more than two years old and I was told that he doesn’t have enough blood in his body so they need to give him blood. Two other mothers come over to watch the blood drip from the bag, through the IV and into the boy’s hand. They talk with the mother as he fights to get comfortable and is a bit upset of the pain of the IV needle.
As the nurses are getting ready to leave, the grandmother with her granddaughter stands up in the middle of the room and starts shouting/singing and then begins doing an African dance. Linda bursts out laughing; what a beautiful laugh (and it helps to drown out the sound of the screaming baby down the hall). The grandmother entertains for about 30 seconds, then sighs, and crawls back into her and her granddaughter’s bed, under the mosquito net and drifts off to sleep.
Linda is now wide awake. She starts gibbering off in Swahili to me. With hand jesters between the two of us and the Swahili that I know, we actually communicate very well. She shows me her IV needle in her hand, although there’s no IV attached to her now. She says she doesn’t like it and it hurts too much.
Now it’s 9:25pm and Linda is hungry again. Just two hours ago, she ate a chicken leg with roasted potatoes. This is a great sign – having her appetite back. I give her about two mouthfuls of my Coke. She likes the fact that we’re sharing my Coke with each other she then asks for her bread and starts to dip her bread in to her Coke. I make a grossed out look on my face and we both burst into laughter.
The little boy, Kiprop, at this point is very fussy. He’s whining and coughing uncontrollably. It sounds likes he’s coughing up his lungs and on the verge of vomiting. His mother is getting impatient and frustrated; she’s tired and just wants to go to sleep. She raises her voice at him but she seems to fail in realizing that the louder and more frustrated she gets, the more upset he becomes and the worse his whining and coughing are. My heart breaks for him.
Linda is now done dipping her bread in to her Coke. I remove the cup and bag of bread from her bed. She wants to go to sleep now so I tightly tuck her back under the blanket and cover her with kisses and say good night to the sound of her laughter.
In the distance, I can hear chanting. It quite possibly could be a number of people praying in unison. I don’t go to check it out; I instead stay and wait for Linda to fall asleep.
It’s now 10:00pm and Linda has fallen asleep quite quickly. I decide to get ready for bed and make a last trip to the not-so-clean toilet and hopefully off to sleep I can go.
As I head to the toilet, I realize that the chanting that I hear is mothers and grandmothers singing softly in the next ward. When I walk by again, they are now praying; the prayers are loud, powerful and some very tearful.
A few minutes later, the prayers have stopped; the only sounds in our room are now Linda’s breathing and a few whining noises from Kiprop and the snoring of his mother.
About ten minutes later, Kiprop’s whining increases into tears of pain and discomfort. He cried through is tears, “Mama! Mama!” She curses at him once and then I hear her snoring again. Again Kiprop says, “Mama! Mama!” over and over again. I go over to console him but then the mother looks over and seems me coming toward them so she pulls out her breast and puts it to his mouth to feed. It quiets him for about three minutes where he then begins again. His mother is furious at this point and some of the others in the room are getting a bit agitated. She clicks at him, tells him to shut up and then ignores him.
I hear Linda toss a bit in the bed; I look over and thankfully she stays asleep despite Kiprop’s whining and calling out to his mother. Kiprop is now sobbing and in between the sobs, he’s gasping for air and then coughing. His mother clicks at him, telling him be quiet and goes back to sleep. This happens over and over again. When I hear she’s snoring and out like a light and he’s still whining, I go over to their bed and kneel down in front of him. I start to rub his cheek, his face and his head. He immediately calms down, and moves his head in the motion of my hand…harder into my hand to feel my touch against his face. He actually begins to close his eyes and starts to fall asleep. I gently lay him down next his mother. He’s quiet and falls asleep.
I can feel the cold night air coming in through the glassless window door that separates us from the outside. Linda has three blankets; one as a pillow, one underneath her and one over top of her and I’m not about to steal any of her blankets. I’ll just put on my sweatshirt and socks…that should work.
I thinks its now bedtime. I crawl in to the crib (a little small but the fetal position always works!) but no sleep right away.
It’s around 11:40pm and Linda wakes up and looks in the direction I was sitting in when she fell asleep. When she doesn’t see me there, panic strikes her voice as she loudly says my name, “Mary!” I say “I’m here!” in Swahili. She turns her head around and literally sighs out loud and then smiles. I ask her if she’s okay and she says she needs the toilet. We get out of our cribs and head to the toilet. The big, main ward, the one we’re not in, smells of urine and vomit. Most of the room is quiet, except for some little crying from children and snoring from mothers or grandmothers. There are a few people awake; just sitting there but somewhere in the back beds, I hear a woman singing to her child.
I bring Linda back to bed, do the routine of tucking her in tightly, cover her with kisses and say goodnight. She falls asleep almost instantly. What an angel!
It’s 2:19am now and I just suddenly got woken by a loud and long scream. I’m looking around the room to confirm that it’s none of us in our ward. I hear women start to sing and pray. The scream turns into sobbing. I wonder if a child has just lost his/her life. As I too say a prayer, tears fall down my face and I drift off to very light sleep.
Wow, I’m not sleeping much. I look at my cell phone; it reads 3:23am. I hear Linda rustling around under her blanket and making a moaning noise. I think she’s having a nightmare. Linda bolts up in bed and calls, “Mary, Mary!” in a panic. She is looking in the opposite direction that I’m sleeping in. I jump out of the crib and say in Swahili, “Linda, I’m here! It’s okay.” I rub her head, give her a kiss and she lies back down. I sit beside her for a moment, rubbing her head until she falls back to sleep. I then crawl back in to my crib.
It’s now 5:15am. I might as well get up, as I’m up at 5:00am every weekday morning anyway. I crawl out of crib and notice that some of the mothers are starting to stir in their beds too. The noise in the hallways is increasing as people all around our section are starting to wake up also. I pull out the chair and sit next to Linda’s bed.
It’s 7:00am and our social worker, Anne, arrives to relieve me from Linda’s bedside, although I realize that I don’t really want to go. I want to stay with her…we’ve had fun. Its a few minutes later and Linda wakes up. She’s definitely not a morning person. She’s very quiet and non-expressive. It’s quite funny to watch her this way.
Anne goes and gets some water and gives her a quick sponge bath in the bed and rubs her face, arms and legs with smearing oil (aka: Vaseline – it keeps their skin soft and smooth).
After a few minutes, I say good-bye to Linda. I need to go home and get some sleep. She asks if I will come back and visit her. “Of course I will come back. I love you Linda.” She smiles at me, a big beautiful smile. I’ll take that as an “I love you too.” : )
****************
On Thursday, November 20th, Linda was released from the hospital. She returned to HBF and so far, so good. She is doing AMAZINGLY well, her appetite is back and she’s laughing along with the other kids.
In the room there are seven beds, five of them are twin size beds, two of them cribs. All the twin beds are occupied, three with mothers and their children and the other with a grandmother and her granddaughter. One crib is occupied by Linda, the other one empty. It, based on what the nurse just suggested (well more like demanded of me!), will probably house me in a little while as my bed…once the eyelids get heavy.
It’s now 9:00pm and most of the moms and the grandmother are sleeping. There is one mother and her son who are still awake. The mother tells me that her son, Kiprop, is suffering a bad chest cold. He can’t get comfortable and is constantly coughing and gasping for air. His mother is trying to be patient but loses it from time to time by “clicking” at him (which is a not so nice thing here – shows and relays that you’re annoyed or angry with the person) or tells him sternly to “BE QUIET!!”
I ask Linda if she is tired; she says yes. I have her lie down and pull the blanket up to her chin. I tuck her in nice and tight, kiss her all over the face and say good night. She laughs and then snuggles in to her blanket and closes her eyes.
Four minutes later, the silence in the room is broken by a nurse and her cart. She has come to do the evening medication run for the children. Her bedside manners definitely need quite a bit of tweaking. Another nurse comes in; I like her. She’s really nice and gentle with the children; she even calls Linda “sweetie”. Perhaps because I’m there but she’s nice to all the others too. The mothers and grandmother spend the next few minutes pulling out the medication and medical “chart” (which is more like a piece of paper) of their children.
Here, the parents/guardians are responsible to buy all necessary medication and equipment (i.e. needles, IV necessities, etc.) they are also responsible to bring/buy their own bed sheets, blankets, cups and eating utensils for overnight stays. Nothing, except the bed, the mattress and the nurses/doctors is supplied by the hospitals.
I watch the nurse hook a bag full of blood on the wall and connect the IV into the little boy on the bed next to Linda. He’s no more than two years old and I was told that he doesn’t have enough blood in his body so they need to give him blood. Two other mothers come over to watch the blood drip from the bag, through the IV and into the boy’s hand. They talk with the mother as he fights to get comfortable and is a bit upset of the pain of the IV needle.
As the nurses are getting ready to leave, the grandmother with her granddaughter stands up in the middle of the room and starts shouting/singing and then begins doing an African dance. Linda bursts out laughing; what a beautiful laugh (and it helps to drown out the sound of the screaming baby down the hall). The grandmother entertains for about 30 seconds, then sighs, and crawls back into her and her granddaughter’s bed, under the mosquito net and drifts off to sleep.
Linda is now wide awake. She starts gibbering off in Swahili to me. With hand jesters between the two of us and the Swahili that I know, we actually communicate very well. She shows me her IV needle in her hand, although there’s no IV attached to her now. She says she doesn’t like it and it hurts too much.
Now it’s 9:25pm and Linda is hungry again. Just two hours ago, she ate a chicken leg with roasted potatoes. This is a great sign – having her appetite back. I give her about two mouthfuls of my Coke. She likes the fact that we’re sharing my Coke with each other she then asks for her bread and starts to dip her bread in to her Coke. I make a grossed out look on my face and we both burst into laughter.
The little boy, Kiprop, at this point is very fussy. He’s whining and coughing uncontrollably. It sounds likes he’s coughing up his lungs and on the verge of vomiting. His mother is getting impatient and frustrated; she’s tired and just wants to go to sleep. She raises her voice at him but she seems to fail in realizing that the louder and more frustrated she gets, the more upset he becomes and the worse his whining and coughing are. My heart breaks for him.
Linda is now done dipping her bread in to her Coke. I remove the cup and bag of bread from her bed. She wants to go to sleep now so I tightly tuck her back under the blanket and cover her with kisses and say good night to the sound of her laughter.
In the distance, I can hear chanting. It quite possibly could be a number of people praying in unison. I don’t go to check it out; I instead stay and wait for Linda to fall asleep.
It’s now 10:00pm and Linda has fallen asleep quite quickly. I decide to get ready for bed and make a last trip to the not-so-clean toilet and hopefully off to sleep I can go.
As I head to the toilet, I realize that the chanting that I hear is mothers and grandmothers singing softly in the next ward. When I walk by again, they are now praying; the prayers are loud, powerful and some very tearful.
A few minutes later, the prayers have stopped; the only sounds in our room are now Linda’s breathing and a few whining noises from Kiprop and the snoring of his mother.
About ten minutes later, Kiprop’s whining increases into tears of pain and discomfort. He cried through is tears, “Mama! Mama!” She curses at him once and then I hear her snoring again. Again Kiprop says, “Mama! Mama!” over and over again. I go over to console him but then the mother looks over and seems me coming toward them so she pulls out her breast and puts it to his mouth to feed. It quiets him for about three minutes where he then begins again. His mother is furious at this point and some of the others in the room are getting a bit agitated. She clicks at him, tells him to shut up and then ignores him.
I hear Linda toss a bit in the bed; I look over and thankfully she stays asleep despite Kiprop’s whining and calling out to his mother. Kiprop is now sobbing and in between the sobs, he’s gasping for air and then coughing. His mother clicks at him, telling him be quiet and goes back to sleep. This happens over and over again. When I hear she’s snoring and out like a light and he’s still whining, I go over to their bed and kneel down in front of him. I start to rub his cheek, his face and his head. He immediately calms down, and moves his head in the motion of my hand…harder into my hand to feel my touch against his face. He actually begins to close his eyes and starts to fall asleep. I gently lay him down next his mother. He’s quiet and falls asleep.
I can feel the cold night air coming in through the glassless window door that separates us from the outside. Linda has three blankets; one as a pillow, one underneath her and one over top of her and I’m not about to steal any of her blankets. I’ll just put on my sweatshirt and socks…that should work.
I thinks its now bedtime. I crawl in to the crib (a little small but the fetal position always works!) but no sleep right away.
It’s around 11:40pm and Linda wakes up and looks in the direction I was sitting in when she fell asleep. When she doesn’t see me there, panic strikes her voice as she loudly says my name, “Mary!” I say “I’m here!” in Swahili. She turns her head around and literally sighs out loud and then smiles. I ask her if she’s okay and she says she needs the toilet. We get out of our cribs and head to the toilet. The big, main ward, the one we’re not in, smells of urine and vomit. Most of the room is quiet, except for some little crying from children and snoring from mothers or grandmothers. There are a few people awake; just sitting there but somewhere in the back beds, I hear a woman singing to her child.
I bring Linda back to bed, do the routine of tucking her in tightly, cover her with kisses and say goodnight. She falls asleep almost instantly. What an angel!
It’s 2:19am now and I just suddenly got woken by a loud and long scream. I’m looking around the room to confirm that it’s none of us in our ward. I hear women start to sing and pray. The scream turns into sobbing. I wonder if a child has just lost his/her life. As I too say a prayer, tears fall down my face and I drift off to very light sleep.
Wow, I’m not sleeping much. I look at my cell phone; it reads 3:23am. I hear Linda rustling around under her blanket and making a moaning noise. I think she’s having a nightmare. Linda bolts up in bed and calls, “Mary, Mary!” in a panic. She is looking in the opposite direction that I’m sleeping in. I jump out of the crib and say in Swahili, “Linda, I’m here! It’s okay.” I rub her head, give her a kiss and she lies back down. I sit beside her for a moment, rubbing her head until she falls back to sleep. I then crawl back in to my crib.
It’s now 5:15am. I might as well get up, as I’m up at 5:00am every weekday morning anyway. I crawl out of crib and notice that some of the mothers are starting to stir in their beds too. The noise in the hallways is increasing as people all around our section are starting to wake up also. I pull out the chair and sit next to Linda’s bed.
It’s 7:00am and our social worker, Anne, arrives to relieve me from Linda’s bedside, although I realize that I don’t really want to go. I want to stay with her…we’ve had fun. Its a few minutes later and Linda wakes up. She’s definitely not a morning person. She’s very quiet and non-expressive. It’s quite funny to watch her this way.
Anne goes and gets some water and gives her a quick sponge bath in the bed and rubs her face, arms and legs with smearing oil (aka: Vaseline – it keeps their skin soft and smooth).
After a few minutes, I say good-bye to Linda. I need to go home and get some sleep. She asks if I will come back and visit her. “Of course I will come back. I love you Linda.” She smiles at me, a big beautiful smile. I’ll take that as an “I love you too.” : )
****************
On Thursday, November 20th, Linda was released from the hospital. She returned to HBF and so far, so good. She is doing AMAZINGLY well, her appetite is back and she’s laughing along with the other kids.
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