maurius

I'm sad right now. O'Brien's going has left a bigger hurt in my heart than I thought it would at first. I keep thinking about him, about his poor, broken mama going home with empty arms. I can't stop replaying those last few moments of his life while he slipped away and we just watched him go. I still have the photos of him on my computer, and I keep stumbling across them and a wave of pain just washes over me again.

And then yesterday. I heard my name shrieked from the ward where they were doing a surgical screening, and I stuck my head in to see Antoinette, a patient from last year in Benin. I sat down to talk with them, as far as we can talk with my few words in Fon and her few words in French. We hadn't been there long when mama beckoned over a translator. We usually muddle along just fine without one, so I wondered what she needed to tell me.

She spoke a short sentence or two, and the translator turned to me with no preamble, nothing to prepare my poor, bruised heart. She says that baby from last year died. I think the one named Maomai? No explanation, no other information. Just a baby who was fat and happy and smiling in my arms the last time I saw her, and now for some unknown reason, has died.

I don't even really know what to write. I'm sad and I'm discouraged, and I can't see my way forward through all this. I know I won't stop loving; that's not an option. But if loving means I get hurt like this, I have to be honest - it's hard. It's hard to know that giving my heart to a baby here in West Africa means there's something like a thirteen percent chance of that child dying before it reaches its fifth birthday. (To put it in perspective, in the States, it's more like 0.78 percent. Not even close.)

How can I love in the face of all that? How can I just open up my heart and invite the pain that's almost certain to come?

I guess it's because Maurius went home yesterday. Fat and happy and smiling in his mama's arms, and before he went, we stood in a circle and we prayed over him. Prayed that he would be the one to prove all those statistics wrong. God, not another Maomai. Not another O'Brien. Let this one live. Let him live.

Last night as I was falling asleep, I saw an image of an old man, sitting on a wooden bench, children scattered at his feet, asking him for their favourite story. And so Old Man Maurius smiles and tells them the story all over again, the one where God saves his life and he grows up fat and happy, smiling and holding his grandchildren in his arms.

I don't know if that's really what God has in store for Maurius or if it's just the cry of my own selfish heart that can't bear to hear more bad news. I do know that it's what He wants for Maurius, for each one of these precious children of His. And I know that He's entrusted me the task of loving them while they're here.

So I guess I won't be stopping any time soon.

Today was a strange day, so full of contrasts. It's that mix of joy and heartbreak that's so common here, the mix that somehow never feels quite right.

There was Maurius, sitting like a king on his bed, propped up in a wash basin, tucked in all around with lappas so he couldn't fall down, reigning over his corner of A Ward with wide eyes and ready smiles. He's drinking all his milk by mouth now, and if he keeps this up he'll be home by the end of the weekend, fat and happy.

But then, of course, there's O'Brien in the corner across from him, struggling so hard to breathe that his tiny heart has started to fail him. And so, under the watchful eye of King Maurius, we bundled O'Brien up and made the walk back down the hall to the ICU yet again, the place where we saw his life miraculously spared just a few weeks ago.

Knowing what happened before, we haven't been hesitant to pray for healing, gathering in little groups all across the hospital to plead God for life, but miracles have been slow to appear today. Instead, we've watched as his body struggled to get enough oxygen. We've tried everything short of a ventilator (something that isn't an option anymore, given everything else going on), and still his body is failing him. We've been MacGuyver and Inspector Gadget and the Professor from Gilligan's Island, rigging up one failed solution after another to help him breathe, but nothing is really working. Right now he's wrapped up in his mama's lappa, a wire hanger twisted around to form a frame for the plastic bag, being filled with pure oxygen, that he's resting inside, and still he struggles.

I don't know what's going to happen with O'Brien. I don't know how many days God wrote into his book before he was born, and my heart trembles to think that we might be nearing the last page.

And down the hall in A Ward, after praying for our little sparrow baby at handover, we all stood in a circle with Aissa in the middle, and we danced the chicken dance. Nurses and translators and a little girl with her head all wrapped in a bandage, dancing the chicken dance right in the face of all this pain.

It's hard to get used to it.

.....

In other news, I wanted to share a photo of Liz, Aissa and I on Togo's independence day, while we had Aissa hard at work churning out those Togolese flags. (Remember; give her a task, and she's set.) It's hard to see behind the flag she's holding up, but you can catch a glimpse of the balloon tower taped to her head. She is one classy kid.

And speaking of classy, there's just one more day to register for the giveaway. Don't miss your chance to win a little piece of Africa! I've been having so much fun hearing from so many of you who don't normally comment. It's amazing to hear about people who've adopted from Africa, people who have a heart for this continent, people who've done hilarious, dangerous things and people who think that jaywalking somehow counts towards living life on the edge. (coughDinacough) I think I'll definitely be doing this again soon.

Today marks fifty years of independence for Togo. According to our day volunteers, this is cause for celebration. Like the 4th of July or Canada Day, only much, much hotter and with more dust. Cyril, one of our translators, informed me early in the morning that there would be a parade in town at around two o'clock, and that it was in the best interests of all our patients to put them in a bus and take them there to enjoy it. I told him I didn't think it would be possible, so he asked me to at least think about it. Which I did, for a long time, and eventually came up with the only objection to the plan; I didn't own a bus. This satisfied him, and he settled for our version of a party. It was slightly less authentic, given the fact that it took place inside a hospital, but I think we did okay.

Just like everything else around here, things quickly turned from an independence day cheer into a full-out worship and dance party. We sang in at least three different languages while patients who hadn't been out of bed in days shuffled and danced alongside us. Lovelace and Aissa danced next to each other, Aissa's moves a little limited by the pain in her leg from where they took the skin to cover the hole in her cheek. Videssi shook a sasa from his bed and Chantal, true to form, was in the thick of it, laughing and singing and raising songs at the top of her voice.

It's moments like that when I look around in wonder at what I'm a part of. To know that this ship was bought and renovated and sailed across the world so that Maurius can live with a straight smile. (A smile, by the way, which I saw again today for the first time since his surgery.) So that Aissa can go out in public without covering her face. To see all these broken people being asked to dance, being told that they are lovely and valuable and worth a thousand celebrations. Sarah put it so perfectly on the day of Aissa's surgery.

It struck me then, the extravagance of God’s love. Who could have imagined that this little girl, who almost slipped away to die in obscurity would now be the recipient of the attention of a team of professionals, specialists in their fields? That all the excitement, effort, skill and precision would be for her restoration?

Extravagant love, should I have expected anything different?

Whether we're singing the return of a baby to the bed he used to sleep in or cheering for independence, we are always celebrating something on these wards. We are celebrating love.

(Not just love. Today, we also celebrated the fact that Aissa took her meds without a fight, calmly rinsed her mouth and grabbed the swab and mirror to do the wound care for her nose. All by herself. While wearing a tower of balloons taped to the top of her head bandage like a bizarre flower. We're celebrating that, too.)


Also, don't forget to register for the giveaway and to donate here for an extra chance to win!

At handover this morning, instead of a Bible verse, we settled for misquoting the Black Eyed Peas. I've got a feeling, that today's gonna be a good day. That today's gonna be a good, good day. Personally, I wasn't feeling particularly hopeful, having been up since before five and feeling more than a little ill. Right now, it's hard for me not to worry at any signs of sickness, because my Hepatitis B test has come back positive again. For those of you who don't know, I contracted Hep B back in Liberia after a needlestick injury on my second day of work on the wards. Subsequent tests looked like everything had been cleared from my system, but when I went to be a blood donor again this year, the test came back positive. Right now there's nothing to do but wait; I won't be back to the first world before Christmas, so unless there's a local lab that can run further tests, we'll watch my liver and hold on for December.

All that to say that any kind of flu-like symptoms make me feel the slightest hint of panic, since having The Hep in 2008 felt like having a flu that lasted for several long months at a time. It wasn't fun, and I'm not really hoping to go through that again. Today, I felt, was not really going to be such a great day.

Will it surprise you to hear that, just like so many times before, I was wrong?

Maurius came home to B Ward today. Ever since his surgery, he's been in the ICU, going through procedure after procedure. Twice they tried to remove his trach and have him breathe on his own. Twice he failed, one of those times miserably. He's had special IVs and feeding problems and so many struggles. But today, all that was taken away, the hole in his neck closed for good. Today, he came back to us, to the little corner bed where Chantal has been sleeping every night, waiting for him.

They came into the ward like a parade, Chantal carrying Maurius, Natalie (his nurse) carrying the feeding pump. And as soon as they walked through the door the place erupted into cheers and clappings and spontaneous songs of worship. Our baby had come home, and everyone in that place knew that a great victory had been won. Even Lovelace, who we don't think will live to see her own healing on this earth, grinned up at her papa, clapping her hands at the joy all around her, celebrating for another little one who has been given back life.

Chantal headed for her little bed in the corner, Maurius like a prayer in her outstretched hands. She knelt as the tears ran down our faces, singing in a voice shaking with joy, singing praises to Mawu who has done this great thing for her son.

A little boy came home today. It was a good, good day.

There is much to tell and sometimes words feel so inadequate. It's so hard to explain just how it feels when I walk into the ICU to find baby Maurius nestled in Chantal's arms, a small dressing covering the hole where his trach used to be. Granted, he sounds like an anemic duck when he breathes, but each hour that passes is a triumph that none of us counts lightly. I wish you could know how it feels when my heart catches in my throat and everything gets a little blurry and through it all my heart is singing, singing, singing.

I wish you could be here to see seven-year old Aissa discover the world of MagnaDoodle. The way her eyes grow wide with wonder when she realizes that the magnetic letters on the wall can be used to draw, too. I wish you could feel the weight of her on your back, limp after her latest tantrum, her latest test of our love. Aissa is a little motherless child from Cameroon, abandoned by both her parents and hurt by so many people in her life. And so she pushes, screaming and hitting and doing everything she can to drive us away, and I can't help thinking it's because she figures we're going to leave her anyway. So why not get it over with?

The thing little Aissa doesn't realize is that there's nothing she can do to make us stop loving her. We've known her all of a week, and little Madam has already found her place among us, cemented ever more firmly with each little chirp in her tribal language in response to our English questions. We have no idea what we're saying to each other, and yet we play all day long, batting around balloons, painting boxes to hold little dollies and having long, drawn-out conversations on calculator phones. (The fact that they don't work as such makes no difference, given the rather profound language barrier.)

Aissa is going to the operating room tomorrow to have her face rebuilt, because where her right cheek should mirror the plump one on the left, she has nothing but a gaping hole, teeth and gums exposed. She is one of about ten percent of children who even survive a battle with noma, an infection that's treatable with simple antibiotics but which, if left unchecked, will literally eat away at the flesh of lips and cheeks and face. If you've never heard of it, it's because it doesn't exist in the developed world. Here in West Africa, it's a different story, a story where little girls face lives as outcasts because there just aren't any doctors.

But my heart still sings, because tomorrow Aissa will be made whole again. And as we care for her, our prayer is that the God Chantal prays to every single day will reach out through our actions, translate them into words to speak to Aissa and her Uncle Jean of the Love that will never leave her.

I feel so silly today, like a little kid who threw a tantrum because she didn't get her own way, when really her papa was planning on giving her a second scoop of ice cream all along.

I got the call late last night, while I was lying awake in bed and worrying about Maurius. Just so you're aware, he's had another episode, and they're taking him back to the OR to put in a trach. For Maurius, an episode is nothing to be scoffed at, nothing like on TV, where everything is neatly packaged by the end of the show. In this case, nothing has been that simple. He'd somehow managed to block off his breathing tube for the second time in less than eight hours, and the doctors were simply unable to get another tube in its place. There were no other options.

Sleep was a long time coming last night as I sat on my couch and prayed even as I raged at God, unable even in my anger to stop asking Him for hope. Why can O'Brien have a miracle while Maurius suffers through yet another traumatic procedure? Why one and not the other? And yet I couldn't stop myself asking Him for wisdom, for skill, for sure-handed surgeons. Questioning His will and asking Him to provide all in one long, jumbled-up prayer that I'm sure the Spirit had to interpret for me because I know I wasn't making any sense.

So many of you have written and reminded me that it's okay to question, that it's okay to be angry, and I'm so grateful for that reassurance. Your words mixed with His in the dark of the night, and I found that I was able to trust even through my hurt. Remembering that the promised light is only for the next step. That even though right now all I can see is the snake across my path, the step after that, when the Light moves forward with me, might be something so incredible that I'll wonder why I was ever scared to begin with.

And so of course, with the morning came the light. Mercy new with the dawn, and Maurius is surprising us all. I sat with him while his nurse took her lunch break and the ventilator continued its relentless pulse. His bottom lip stuck out in a constant pout, and he kept trying to pull on the tubing connected to his new trach. The solution was obvious, although I'm not sure who ended up benefiting more from it when I stuck my finger in his chubby little hand and he held on with all his strength. His forehead smoothed out and his heart rate inched down a couple points and I sat there, the pain in my heart easing just a tiny bit, hardly daring to breathe while I watched him do so effortlessly. Such a change from yesterday, and his soft fingers clenched around mine let me hope in a way I hadn't dared before.

It appears Maurius has decided to stay with us, because when I checked on him again before leaving for the day, the ventilator sat in the corner, unplugged and silent. Maurius was wide awake, glaring at us with his furrowed brow, needing just a little oxygen blowing into his trach to help him breathe. He's apparently not a huge fan of all the fuss, and would most likely prefer to be in his mama's arms, chugging a bottle.

All that will come with time. Maurius is at the start of a long road, but the Light that's shown us the path this far will lead us home, I'm sure. And somewhere, in the background, I can almost hear God laughing at me. Not mocking or derisive, that laughter; just the amused chuckle of One who could see from the beginning that there was really nothing for me to get mad about in the first place. The One who knew I was going to get that second scoop of ice cream, and forty seven more, if only my bowl were big enough to hold it all at once.

I'd like a bigger bowl, please.

I feel like I sometimes paint too bright a picture of my heart around here. Like I'm some kind of faith-filled warrior who can trust God through anything. Like there's always a lesson to be learned in every situation, a lesson from a loving God and so everything is okay. So maybe it'll shock you when I tell you that I'm angry today. I'm frustrated and disappointed and I'm actually just plain angry at God.

Maurius went into the operating room today. I was headed to a meeting in the office when I passed by his mama, Chantal, huddled with the nurses in the waiting area. I stopped to pray, one hand on her back, the other on Maurius' chubby foot, and then they went in through the heavy, sliding doors and I went on with my day.

Just a few minutes later, there was a flurry of activity and people being paged to OR Four, and when we turned on the camera in that room, we saw another huddle around Maurius, this one made up of surgeons and anesthetists and nurses and everyone was moving faster than they should if everything was okay. We stopped our meeting right then and there and sat in a circle and prayed to a God we've seen do miracles before. Truth be told, after what happened last week, I expected the same again. I expected to watch on the silent screen while the tension rolled out of shoulders and the crash cart rolled out of the room.

Except that's not what happened. Maurius is very sick. His lip is fixed, and he looks like a new baby, but that new baby is so awfully sick. The infant tubing for the new ventilator is held up somewhere a few miles away in customs, and the old ventilator just isn't precise enough, so we've had to roll a great, hulking anesthesia machine over from the OR just to breathe for him. None of us can see the light at the end of the tunnel right now, and it makes me so angry I just want to scream.

How is this fair? Why this kid? After all his mama's done, after all we've done, why on earth would this happen? And why doesn't God just step in like He did with O'Brien? Why is He waiting, off in the wings somewhere, while we watch this baby suffer?

I know this doesn't make me a good Christian, all this doubt. But I look at that little one with his lip all held together with steri strips and I want to shake my fist at the sky and demand to know why it had to come at such a price. Why, just once this year, something couldn't go right instead of so horribly wrong.

Why can't something just go right for one of these babies?

I spoke too soon about our little man Maurius. It seems so unfair that these little ones who struggle so much just to gain weight should struggle in other ways too, but Maurius has aspiration pneumonia, the same problem that almost took Obre from us. It's not uncommon among these kids; it's a wonder more of them don't suffer from it, given the fact that there's an open hole in the roof of their mouths, just inviting milk to slide down into their lungs.

We knew Maurius choked a bit while he drank his milk, but last night he started coughing even more than usual, and an x-ray showed the telltale signs in his lungs. His surgery was canceled and he was started on antibiotics and breathing treatments to help him heal so that we'll be able to reschedule his operation.

With all this going on around her, Maurius' mama sat on their bed, looking forlorn. She could almost touch her heart's desire, and yet we snatched it from her outstretched hands, and she was bewildered at how fast the plans had changed.

I don't even know her name, but that woman and I have become good friends. She delights in my open admiration of her baby, and will call me over to his bed whenever she thinks he's looking particularly cute, knowing that I'll give him all the praise he deserves. Today, though, she was quiet, openly disappointed, so I came up with a plan to cheer her up; I printed out the photo of him that I posted yesterday, the one where he looks so near death with his skin hanging off his bones.

I scrawled a note on it in a language I knew she couldn't read, and then got a translator to speak it to her in Ewe. Look how fat I've gotten! Love, Maurius. Her response was just what I hoped. Her face brightened and she jumped up, throwing her arms around my neck and slapping me on the back like we'd both just won the Stanley Cup. We danced for a moment while Maurius looked on from the bed, a slightly-wheezy buddha-bellied little man, grinning his lopsided, broken grin.

Figuring my mission was accomplished, I turned to head back to my desk, but she caught my arm and pointed to the low ceilings of the ward. We both looked up as she shared her heart in words I could understand, words I spoke with her in her joy. Akpe na Mawu. Akpe kaka. Akpe. And then she knelt next to her bed, eyes tight shut, hands folded, and spoke those words over and over again. Thanks be to God. Thank You so much. Thank You.

Even though Maurius' lip hasn't yet been fixed, we are already winning this battle. She has chosen life, and she has chosen it in the name of Jesus. In just two months Maurius has gone from near-death to bursting out of his clothes, and we know she will not stop fighting for him until she can kiss him with an unbroken lip.





And now, almost directly across from Maurius, tucked into the other corner of the ward, are Obre and his mama. He's officially out of the ICU, and the plan in his chart is simple; when he can keep his oxygen levels up without the little puff of oxygen near his face, we wait two days to make sure nothing happens and then we send him home to continue getting fat. That's it. Just wait and watch and marvel all over again at what Mawu has done and what He is continuing to do down in those wards.


(Keep praying for our little ones and for Hettie, the nurse who oversees our Infant Feeding Program. So many of the babies have been tough cases this year, and she's doing an amazing job working with them.)

When I met Maurius, he was skin and bones, just like so many of the little ones we've seen this year. His mama loved him, it was clear, but the hole in the roof of his mouth was just too big; she didn't know how to feed him.

Despite his deformity, Maurius came to us in style, dressed in the typical outfit of grown African men; a cloth suit with a button-up shirt and pajama-style pants in matching fabric. He weighed less than a newborn but was already sporting clothes far beyond his years, and the first time I saw him I burst out laughing.

Mama, I told her, when I could breathe again, you have a little man in a big man's clothes! She laughed along with me and told me that, with God's help, he would soon be big. Her faith was well-placed.

Today, I found myself drawn to Maurius' bed over and over. He ended up being admitted a day early, so we've had lots of time to enjoy a happy, pre-surgical baby. (For some reason they're never quite as much fun once they've been through the operating room.) Have you clicked on that little thumbnail to see his photo bigger? Go do it, and then come back and I'll tell you how he looks now.

Gone is the listless baby with tired eyes. Instead, he holds his head up, wide-eyed and bright, looking around the room to make sure he doesn't miss anything. He smiles at the slightest provocation, the sides of his lip splitting even wider with his grins. Where the skin used to hang in wrinkles off his bones, he's got round rolls and dimples. And instead of ribs showing, all you can see when you lift his shirt is a big, plump belly.

Tomorrow Maurius will go to the operating room to have his lip repaired. And when he comes back, we'll dress him in his little cloth suit again, a suit that's starting to get tight around the waist.

Big man in a little man's clothes.


(And, in other cleft-lip-baby-news, Obre is still doing splendidly well. He started receiving formula through his tube again today, and it hasn't caused him to have any problems breathing. We are still in awe as we watch him grow stronger.)