Saturday, January 19, 2008
Friday Night for the Hamptons
God used Jane to save another boy's life last night.
At least that is my take on the matter. Jane and Sara were making the rounds of the Koranic schools yesterday to update the medical records and found one young talibé in great pain, having problems breathing and with a high fever. The kid (not the boy in this photo) had been ill for a little while and Antoinette had already given him a treatment early in the week for malaria. It didn't seem to make any difference, so his Koranic teacher sent him to a local clinic. But the folks there only prescribed him more malaria meds, Just as I walked up to our front door around 7 last night, Jane arrived in the car with the boy and his teacher in the back seat. She wasn't comfortable letting the boy just continue with more of the same, knowing from past experience that seeing malaria in every symptom often delays treatment of other illness. She was quickly off to the hospital downtown.
The first hospital had no labs functioning since it was the start of a holiday weekend. The doctor on call assured Jane, however, that the boy probably just had malaria and they could hospitalize him to start treatment, but she didn't have any way to do blood work to look for other problems until Monday. Jane explained that they had already done a malaria treatment with no effect, so the doctor suggested going the other large government hospital in town where the labs would be manned. So, off they headed to the other place and a few hours later learned that the problem was in fact pneumonia filling one of the boy's lungs. The doctor there gave him a large injection of antibiotics and sent him home with a prescription for more. He stressed that the situation was quite serious and could take quite a while to heal. When I asked about why they didn't hospitalize him, she said the place was filled to the brim with sick kids already. That's OK, I guess. Jane will keep an eye on him. But we would appreciate your prayers for young Saliou.
While Jane was gone, Allison and I had a quiet evening, playing on the PS/2 and talking politics and life. She chatted with Matt in the US a couple times, too. It's been much too quiet since he went back! And since Jonathan spent the night at Scott's house over near school, it was really silent here.
Allison went over with Jane one day this week and spent the morning with her working with the talibé at the church. She got a bunch of photos, especially "gross medical pictures" as we call them. I won't make you look at any of those!
Hopefully our new camera will arrive with Dr. Mike's team late next week and I'll be more regular with posting. It's not that life has been without incidents, as you can see. I just need the visual inspiration of photos. :)
At least that is my take on the matter. Jane and Sara were making the rounds of the Koranic schools yesterday to update the medical records and found one young talibé in great pain, having problems breathing and with a high fever. The kid (not the boy in this photo) had been ill for a little while and Antoinette had already given him a treatment early in the week for malaria. It didn't seem to make any difference, so his Koranic teacher sent him to a local clinic. But the folks there only prescribed him more malaria meds, Just as I walked up to our front door around 7 last night, Jane arrived in the car with the boy and his teacher in the back seat. She wasn't comfortable letting the boy just continue with more of the same, knowing from past experience that seeing malaria in every symptom often delays treatment of other illness. She was quickly off to the hospital downtown.The first hospital had no labs functioning since it was the start of a holiday weekend. The doctor on call assured Jane, however, that the boy probably just had malaria and they could hospitalize him to start treatment, but she didn't have any way to do blood work to look for other problems until Monday. Jane explained that they had already done a malaria treatment with no effect, so the doctor suggested going the other large government hospital in town where the labs would be manned. So, off they headed to the other place and a few hours later learned that the problem was in fact pneumonia filling one of the boy's lungs. The doctor there gave him a large injection of antibiotics and sent him home with a prescription for more. He stressed that the situation was quite serious and could take quite a while to heal. When I asked about why they didn't hospitalize him, she said the place was filled to the brim with sick kids already. That's OK, I guess. Jane will keep an eye on him. But we would appreciate your prayers for young Saliou.
While Jane was gone, Allison and I had a quiet evening, playing on the PS/2 and talking politics and life. She chatted with Matt in the US a couple times, too. It's been much too quiet since he went back! And since Jonathan spent the night at Scott's house over near school, it was really silent here.Allison went over with Jane one day this week and spent the morning with her working with the talibé at the church. She got a bunch of photos, especially "gross medical pictures" as we call them. I won't make you look at any of those!
Hopefully our new camera will arrive with Dr. Mike's team late next week and I'll be more regular with posting. It's not that life has been without incidents, as you can see. I just need the visual inspiration of photos. :)
