Monday, December 12, 2011

the blog i hoped to never write

well it happened. we kinda thought it would at some point. didnt make it any easier.

my rambuctious, stubborn, loveable daughter turned sad, cuddly, and feverish. no eating, no drinking.

to the hospital we go.

pretty sure i cried more than she did the first day. it was the worst feeling to see maeve sick and have no idea how to get help. i had limited resources in my foggy brain. kyle thankfully kept calm and led me to call some friends who work from home and speak french. they quickly came to the conclusion that the best option was to take her to the emergency room at the best hospital in the city. repeat, best hospital in the city.

we arrive unsure of where the emergency room is. not a problem, as there is currently only one pediatrician in house and he is in his office seeing patients.

he takes us next, asks a few questions, checks her over and confirms what i suspected. she is dehydrated from whatever it is that is causing the fevers and diarrhea. she needs fluids. we then make our way to our room. before we can settle in though and get poor maevers taken care of. first we must pay. we pay a cap of 750,000 CFA (500cfa roughly= $1) and are informed we will get reimbursed upon discharge with whatever money is left over. different, but ok. lets get on with it.

we make it to our room and the staff quickly arrive ready to draw blood and insert an i.v.  we are asked to step out. my heart aches to hear her cry "mama" on the other side of the door

coming from a medical background there were some things that i felt were a bit off.
for example, there are no name bands or i.d. of anysort for the patients.   for nursing buddies-can you imagine JCAHO here? it kinda made me chuckle in a not so funny kind of way

staff wear sandals and no socks.

there are no towels in the bathroom, i was informed to use toilet paper to dry my hands. this made me question what the staff use to dry there hands. or, do the staff even wash there hands...

they checked maeves temperature every four hours, but never once any other vital sign or assessment, except for the one time i asked them to listen to her lungs.

the room had a hospital bed without side rails for maeve and i to sleep in. she only fell out once.

other than those observations the hospital was pretty nice. it reminded me of an american hospital, just dated.

although quite modern for african standards...we are in africa. we passed a nurse doing his daily prayers on his prayer mat in the hall. there were ants in our room despite the fact that housekeeping cleaned twice a day. at 4:30pm everyday they delivered tea to your room, dinner at 7.

we saw plenty of no smoking signs (good) in the hospital, but apparently opening a window and holding your head out while you smoke is allowed. i guess "technically" you aren't smoking inside...

by the end of her stay she was getting pretty accustomed to pushing around her own iv pole.

the day we left she met her doctor at the door and reached out to shake his hand. (a senegelese kid at heart!)

i think that was a good indicator that she was back to her old self.  we left that evening, happy to return home and rejoin our family.

thanks to all here in Dakar who helped us out in many different capacities and to those all over who prayed for her. she is back to her happy, hydrated self!

6 comments:

Maggie said...

Cute. (Maeve, not the hospital.) Good reflections :)

Travis said...

I love her smile! I am so glad she is her healthy, happy self once again. God is good. Did she really fall out of bed?

faith said...

bless her she really did fall out once

Aunt Regina said...

Oh, my, I am so glad she is doing better! That is so so scary when they get dehydrated and aren't acting like themselves! Does this illness come from food or a germ? I am praying no one else gets it!

Anonymous said...

Oh, so sorry for you all, but glad she is doing better! Trae was in the hospital a month ago with dehydration. Makes me so thankful for his "living" conditions. Didn't think a lot about it at the time, but am now. She's beautiful, Faith....and love the smile! Praying for all of you!!!

erin zobrist said...

Ok....I just sent that...Erin Z:) I have no idea how to do this blog stuff:)