When Aissa first came to us, she was frightened. We were tall and white and no one could talk to her, no one but Sarah-toe (the incredibly endearing way she pronounces her friend's name), and Sarah-toe couldn't be there all the time. And we imposed rules on her that made no sense, because we had no way to explain that we were moving her away from those cupboards because there were dangerous medicines inside them and we didn't want her to get hurt. And so when we picked her up and carried her away, she was being punished for something she didn't know was wrong, and she responded with fury.She started out by having complete meltdowns every few hours at volumes high enough that those of us in A Ward were considering borrowing ear protection from the engine room. She pushed every limit we tried to set, thrashed against every single boundary, but somehow, somewhere over the course of the last two weeks, her heart has started to open to the love being poured into her from every side.
I think she sees me as something of a constant in her life these days. I'm there every day shift, sitting at the desk while she sits on a little wooden chair next to me, working away at the latest task we've assigned her. (Today she matched pre-op photos with the correct patients and brought me their charts so we could place the photos on the correct page. And then spent two hours cutting strips of paper into tiny little pieces into a garbage can. The task is really irrelevant, as long as we've given her something to do. Her other favourite jobs include doing her wound care, controlling the rate of her tube feedings, and using a syringe to draw up and inject her medications into her own feeding tube. She's seven.)
These days, instead of screaming and wailing, I look up to the sound of her little voice calling me from across the room. Alice-oh! Alice-oh! She'll want to show me her latest paper creation, want me to tape balloons to her head, want me to admire the bright pink glasses and toy stethoscope she's commandeered from a medical kit. She's at my side first thing every morning, gesturing to things she wants, eyes bright as she waits for me to come up with something fun to do.
Today, on one of her trips past my chair, she tripped and fell while carrying a wooden box full of Memory pieces. The box hit her leg right on the place where we took skin, and the pieces burst from the box and scattered all across the floor. Her reaction broke my heart; with a furtive glance of fear around the room, she crouched down, shoulders hunched to ward off the blow she thought was coming. When I reached to pick her up, she was tense, her sobs catching in her throat. I expected a meltdown any minute, and Aissa expected anger and abuse.
Neither of us got what we thought was coming. A translator ran over to clean up the pieces for us while I snuggled her into the curve of my arm and rocked her back and forth, speaking soft words of comfort I knew she couldn't understand. And Aissa just cried quietly for a few minutes before looking up at me with wonder in her un-bandaged eye. It was like she couldn't believe it was okay to fall down, that she could make a mess and not to get in trouble for it. And I think, in some way, she was surprised at herself for not getting angry when she got hurt. She's a smart kid, our little Madam, and I think she knows something's changing, knows that there's nothing to be afraid of here.
So she hopped off my lap, gathered her game, and headed over to play it with her uncle. After which she behaved like a model patient during her first dressing change, watching everything in her little mirror. I wasn't there for that part, but they say her wound looks good, that the graft is healing well.
So is her heart, I think.
Much love, Sadatou