miracles..

during my pediatric rotation, a little boy came into the clinic with his parents. he was dark skinned, which made it hard to tell how sick he was. if he had been white, he would have looked blue. this little boy at 9 months old was knocking on death's door. a med student saw him first and came out of the room waiting for the pediatrician. he hadn't been around kids much and asked me if i thought it was odd for a 9 month old to lay lifeless on an exam table and not really move. my eyes got big and i said go get the doctor even if she's with another patient. i went in the room by myself and the parents were from another country and were less than conversational. i can translate spanish pretty well, but what about the slang dialects of sudan? those of you who know about kids know that 9 month olds don't like strangers and should be a handful even if they are sick. he was barely awake. his hands and feet were like ice, and i could not feel a pulse anywhere. the doctor arrived and immediately took the boy down to the ER. we worked on him for 3 hours trying to get IV access to rehydrate him. nothing seemed to make him better, but he never lost consciousness. they stuck him with needles so many times,but his dehydration was so severe that he didn't even bleed. his parents were just there, and didn't seem to understand how serious this could be. he was on an exam table in the ER and looked so small and alone, that my heart just hurt. i was on my knees in the ER with my hands on this child holding his little arms and passing tourniquets, needles, gloves, or whatever else the staff asked for. nothing was working.and he still wasn't crying. after 2 hours, i took it upon myself to ask for blankets from the warmer to warm him up, but that didn't help either, so i just got on the table with him and held him close to my chest while everyone kept workin on him. he got down some pedialyte, but threw it back up all over my white coat, my pants, and my hands. so i just took the coat off and threw it on the floor. and continued to hold him as close as i could to warm him back up. and i prayed. i didn't know if god would let this child die, but if He did, at least he would not have to die feeling alone. it was funny to me that i didn't think of that first. the hug from the educated white girl,was ironically the 1st thing that helped. i will never forget him looking up at me with big black eyes and squeezing my little finger. finally, he responded to something. they finally stuck a huge needle threw the bone in his leg to get fluids in his little body. 5 minutes later he cried, and i think the 15 of us that had been workin on him wanted to cry with him. he was transferred to vandy and discharged 3 days later. the only thing wrong was dehydration from a stomach virus. kids in third world countries die of dehydration every second. it was totally preventable if someone would have explained to those parents that kids need a lot of fluids when they are sick. if they had kept him at home 3 more hours, he would have died.it's a miracle they brought him in. i know that all of us have opinions about illegal immigrants and those who enjoy our country, but don't speak english, and likely don't pay taxes. if those with such harsh criticism had seen this little boy knock on death's door the way i did, i believe their hearts would soften. if we as a country spent as much of our breath teaching english as we do making jokes about those that don't speak it, i bet we'd all be better off. maybe less children would die every second from just not getting enough water. racism still exists, but i would like to think that in my country, it will not cause such a barrier that innocent children lose their lives because the educated won't teach and the poor can't ask. "too much is given, much is required." it's in the Bible.