This world I am living in is so real, I can touch it with my hands. I can taste it, I can smell it and I can change it! Little by little… but I can see we can change it and we are changing it!
I was asking before why it mattered to me so much? And why I find myself here? The answer is now clear… I am needed here! And as long as I am, I will continue to care and I will continue the work that I have begun. Although we don't share the same colour, language, or culture, we share a time!
I delivered a breech today…. A footling breech! A woman came in having been carried by her husband and brother for 3 hours from a remote village! You can’t quite imagine it, but believe me its true! She had been pushing for hours, and she was frightened. As I went to examine her, her membranes ruptured…..and a foot followed! Just one foot! Oh how I wished this was a skill drill, but no it was real, it was happening and it was happening to me!!! The rest was a bit of a blur, but some how I remembered all those maneuvers and some how I delivered a baby boy! He did need resuscitation but not much! He was a healthy beautiful lucky boy weighing a whopping 4kg! I have been smiling ever since!
There is a young eighteen-year-old girl on the ward who delivered her baby a few days ago. He had horrible abnormalities and didn’t survive. She has developed an almost definite DVT (we don’t have the means to diagnose it, but her symptoms are very indicative.) Her condition is worsening and her future is looking bleaker by the minute. We don’t have the drugs to treat her here and can’t get them released from the hospital in Addis. She has to go for treatment! But the journey is long and expensive, and so is her treatment! Her husband earns 6 bir a day which is equivalent to around 10p, the rest of her family the same; so it is completely impossible for any relatives to pay! So we do what we can, but essentially we have to wait… wait for her to die???
Can’t we just pay? Can’t today just be her lucky day! Can’t we just spend the money we have today and worry about tomorrow… tomorrow??
But we don’t. We are measured, and careful. It is what tomorrow’s patients expect of us… and "the tomorrows stretch towards forever, and today is nearly done!" (James Maskalyk)
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