covering her little burning body. Her fever has been up to 104 and
even though it has dropped a bit now, the Quinine perfusion running
through her "Junk for Jesus" (that is what they call the bad quality
supplies that often gets sent to Africa) IV catheter just gives her
this little-girl-helpless-look. Don't get me wrong. Ansley is a
real trooper. She rode on a moto with her perfusion in hand, cleaned
our SM room, and even sang hymns while battling malaria. But still,
when people get sick, it seems that some innocent child-like side
seems to shine through.
The room we are sitting in is a side room of the hospital. The
hospital has a policy that even employees must be hospitalized if
they are going to have an IV perfusion. You are not allowed to take
all the supplies home and rest there. So the side room is
completely made of cement. The only thing in the room is a sink
(where we get clean drinking water). So its so drab. We carried a
bed mattress over and laid it in the corner and hung her IV perfusion
from the window slats. "Ansley, I'm a little jealous of you right
now," I told her. "This is a Chadian experience!"
Still, if we wanted to get the real experience, it would go a little
more like this.
Arrive at the gate and be welcomed by John Jac, the hospital guard,
with this black stick (he's so nice I don't think he'd actually hit
anyone with it). Then we'd go to Urgence where we'd pay 1000
francs....2 dollars....for a consultation where they would take your
vitals, palpate your tummy, feel for your spleen (malaria enlarges
your spleen), check your eyes for anemia and ask you questions like,
"Have you had diahrrea?" and "Are you vomiting?" After this little
session, they might hospitalize you if you need more than just
pills. So Ansley would take her little box of perfusion bottles and
IV supplies and be taken across the courtyard to the women's
ward. The full beds line the walls and if you hadn't vomited yet,
the stench might just send you over the edge. Anyway, you'd be given
a bed. If your lucky, the mattress was cleaned by our housekeeping crew. But even so, the mattresses are often urinated on, bled on, or sweated on and these fluids probably soaked deep into
the mattress before anyone got a chance to clean them. Thus, we
advise each patient to bring a sheet to lay down on top of the
mattress (many disregard this advice). You are allowed to have two
people who can act as "the guards of the malade", the caregivers of
the sick. These people are supposed to sleep out in the courtyard
and be in charge of making food and bringing water for their friend
or relative. One nurse will care for 40 patients and this would be
impossible if we were giving total care like in the states.
Ansley would probably get to know the problems of each of the ladies
around her and sometimes I wonder if the patients know more about the
other patients than the nurse does. Afterall, each time someone
vomits, has alot of pain, goes to the bathroom, or takes a pill, the
neighbor in the next bed knows.
Being sick in Chad is hard. It's a physically hard place to
be. But, Ansley will be spunky again. As I type, the malaria is
being killed off in her blood.
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