I will call her Little One. She is 6 months old with beautiful big
brown eyes and silky soft skin. She has a smile that stretches ear to
ear and an adorable little coo. She is one of Mama's 11 children.
She often wears blue clothes but is every bit a little lady even in her
brothers' hand me down clothes.
Little One needs our prayers. She is currenly on the feeding program but has yet to gain any weight in the 2 months since she's been followed. She weighs 3.4kg or 7lbs8oz and appears the size of an average newborn. She is from Sierra Leone but is living at the Hope Center (Mercy Ships off-site building where patients live temporarily, often months, while they await surgery or get outpatient treatment in a clean setting without taking up valuable hospital space on the wards) with Mama awaiting surgery once she gains an appropriate amount of weight. It is not uncommon for cleft lip babies to be underweight, as the defect in their lip or palate (or both) prevents them from eating or latching on to their mother's breast and getting the proper nutrition. Haberman feeders (special cleft lip bottles/nipples) are obviously unheard of here, and even if they had access to them, formula is much too expensive with no clean water to mix it. Little One has been nursing well though, she latches great and gulps down milk. Mama cup feeds her faithfully with extra calorie formula. Something just wasn't adding up. They thought maybe she needed more time. It's only been 2 months. She wasn't losing weight, so that alone was a small victory.
Well, three days ago, the Hope Center staff brought Little One to the Ship with respiratory distress. We admitted her with obvious febrile bronchiolitis and started her antibiotics, O2, nebs, and suction. Once her lungs quieted down, there was an obvious heart murmer. A chest x-ray was done and Little One's heart is huge. Huge. We don't have radiologists on the ship, so the x-ray was sent to the U.S. for an official reading. It doesn't take a radiologist to recognize marked cardiomegaly. We are assuming they would recommend an echocardiogram, which we cannot do on the ship. Even if we could, it would be of no benefit to her. We assume she has a congenital heart defect, and if her heart is already that large at 6 months of age, the outlook for Little One is not good. There is not much we can do for Little One, and tomorrow it will probably be decided that she is not a surgical candiate for her lip repair.
I have taken care of Little One the past three days and bonded with her mama as well. Mama is Muslim and leaves the ward to pray several times a day to which she promptly hands over Little One to my loving arms, kisses Little One on the forehead, then kisses me on the cheek and says Merci Merci Merci Natalie and something else in Foula I have yet to make out. I am off the next three days but I will be visiting the ward tomorrow (which conveniently is at the end of the hall on the other side of the fire door).
Please pray for Little One....
Little One needs our prayers. She is currenly on the feeding program but has yet to gain any weight in the 2 months since she's been followed. She weighs 3.4kg or 7lbs8oz and appears the size of an average newborn. She is from Sierra Leone but is living at the Hope Center (Mercy Ships off-site building where patients live temporarily, often months, while they await surgery or get outpatient treatment in a clean setting without taking up valuable hospital space on the wards) with Mama awaiting surgery once she gains an appropriate amount of weight. It is not uncommon for cleft lip babies to be underweight, as the defect in their lip or palate (or both) prevents them from eating or latching on to their mother's breast and getting the proper nutrition. Haberman feeders (special cleft lip bottles/nipples) are obviously unheard of here, and even if they had access to them, formula is much too expensive with no clean water to mix it. Little One has been nursing well though, she latches great and gulps down milk. Mama cup feeds her faithfully with extra calorie formula. Something just wasn't adding up. They thought maybe she needed more time. It's only been 2 months. She wasn't losing weight, so that alone was a small victory.
Well, three days ago, the Hope Center staff brought Little One to the Ship with respiratory distress. We admitted her with obvious febrile bronchiolitis and started her antibiotics, O2, nebs, and suction. Once her lungs quieted down, there was an obvious heart murmer. A chest x-ray was done and Little One's heart is huge. Huge. We don't have radiologists on the ship, so the x-ray was sent to the U.S. for an official reading. It doesn't take a radiologist to recognize marked cardiomegaly. We are assuming they would recommend an echocardiogram, which we cannot do on the ship. Even if we could, it would be of no benefit to her. We assume she has a congenital heart defect, and if her heart is already that large at 6 months of age, the outlook for Little One is not good. There is not much we can do for Little One, and tomorrow it will probably be decided that she is not a surgical candiate for her lip repair.
I have taken care of Little One the past three days and bonded with her mama as well. Mama is Muslim and leaves the ward to pray several times a day to which she promptly hands over Little One to my loving arms, kisses Little One on the forehead, then kisses me on the cheek and says Merci Merci Merci Natalie and something else in Foula I have yet to make out. I am off the next three days but I will be visiting the ward tomorrow (which conveniently is at the end of the hall on the other side of the fire door).
Please pray for Little One....
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