A word from the front lines... (Lisa Zook) 03

Patient Peek....

Ikensia before treatment...

One of my favorite patients so far was a little one-year-old girl that came in around 5am on Sunday morning. Her mother had been admitted a few days earlier and was almost ready to go home when her baby came. The child was pretty dehydrated and limp, with sunken eyes that weren't closing properly anymore. She really pulled at all of our hearts! We quickly admitted her, postponing  some of our usual paperwork routine because of the urgency of the case. I undressed and washed her down a little, then put on a gown and we took her into the building. Inside, Virginia held her while Michael worked on getting an IV in her. Her skin was so delicate and soft....the veins were hard to find and we prayed hard! Before long he was able to get a good solid IV catheter set (in a vein that was almost invisible), and the life-saving fluid started flowing into her little body. There were quite a few exclamations of "Praise the Lord" heard in the CTC that morning!! 

Ikensia after treatment!

With the IV started we relaxed a little...but wait, this little girl has more than cholera. It's pneumonia too! Virginia could feel her lungs rattle all the way to the bottom as she held her, and a little check with a stethoscope confirmed the diagnosis. Thankfully, she took medicine well, and we had no problems getting the oral antibiotic into her. As we watched her carefully over the next few hours, we were so happy that she improved steadily and rapidly. In the first hour we could already see definite signs of recovery in her face. In a couple more hours she was alert and nursing! Within a day her cholera was over, but we kept her for a few more days to take care of her pneumonia. When we released her, she was hardly recognizable as the same baby that had come in just a few days before. Now her skin shone softly, and her eyes that had been so dull and sunken were bright and alert, the picture of health.

Seeing this recovery, as well as many others like it, makes the work here at the CTC so incredibly rewarding! The best part about this particular patient was that her mother was born again while she was here! That is the most rewarding of all :-)

Life! ...instead of death, and all because of the Great Physician!!

~Lisa Zook