Little Celia

It humbles me when God uses me as a part of a plan He orchestrates me into at just the right time.  Little Celia is starving from severe malnutrition.  She is the fourth baby of her mother, Kumea.  And  I realized today that perhaps a big reason for Kumea not coming to get help for her baby (other than the fact that she lives far away in a remote village, has little to no money of her own to pay for services and her husband had refused to help) is that she thought she probably had HIV and that the baby did, too, and would just die.  Kumea nervously consented to an HIV test for herself today and when it came back negative, she didn’t believe the doctor was giving her the true results.  She can’t read and so she just had to trust that we were telling her the truth.  Discrimination in the villages is so strong against anyone with HIV.  In the villages it is still a death sentence, no access to ARVs and still little knowledge as to how to prevent it or the possibility of living with it.  When villagers see a baby wasting away like Celia, they automatically think HIV/AIDS and tell the mother she has it, too.  I’m sure part of her thinking was “Why waste money and time to go to a doctor when Celia will just die and I am probably about to die too?”

Soon after Christianne, Essowe, and I insisted that we take her and the baby to the hospital, we checked out her tongue and saw that her frenulum was too short.  With some gentle pushing of the doctors and nurses from me yesterday and this morning, they did the easy procedure to cut it and she immediately began sucking harder and stronger as she nursed.  Little Celia has sunken eyes, her little legs and arms are bones with skin from the joints down, she has lost hair, and her skin just sags all over her body. Her state of severe malnutrition meant that the WHO protocol must be followed of giving her amoxicillin for any infection in her digestive system as lack of food causes things to grow in her intestines, as well as anti-fungal syrup for the thrush that had developed in her mouth.  They began giving her formula through a little sucking tube held up to Kumea’s breast and she did very well sucking it down and has continued to feed well every two hours.

Her whole family is in Djamba (an hour and a half drive from Kara) and one lady from her husband’s family who lives closer to town came and stayed the night with her last night but left this morning.  However, a lot of the staying with her, bringing food (no food service at the hospitals here), talking with the doctors and nurses, and paying for every service or test before they would perform it has been my privilege to take on since she has no family near by.  Essowe is visiting her tonight with some food and Christianne will come in from Lassa Tchou to see her tomorrow. It should be at least a week if she continues to improve and gain weight, before she is released from the hospital.

A blessing is that the hospital is only charging around $8.00 for their stay, regardless of how long it is because of her level of poverty.  My experiences with CHR in Kara and CHU in Lome’ have been very encouraging as the doctors I have interacted with and staff have, for the most part, been compassionate and helpful.  Medical cleanliness, practices, basic patient care, and organization leave room for much improvement but with what they have many are not giving up and are really trying to help and to heal.  For this I am thanking God.

I am praying that God is saving Celia’s life for Him to receive glory.  I am praying that her mother sees the compassion of Christ in us as she is new in her faith and walk with the Lord.  I am praying that her family and acquaintances will be moved to value life more deeply.  And I am praying for God to continue to form my mind and eyes to be His.