The Story of Mamodi

Mamodi is a great kid with a very sweet disposition.  I have treated him and his siblings for the 3 years we have lived in GKB.  I very much enjoy his mom as well. She is always polite and not pushy – though she has a habit of curtsying when she greets us, which I could do without.  When they come to visit, the kids always come up and shake our hands to greet us.  Like I said – sweet.

Back in May, on a Tuesday evening, Mamodi’s mom brought him to me, complaining that he had thrown up a few times.  Well, to be honest, I was done working for the day and he didn’t look that sick, so I told her – “If you feel like he is really ill, take him to the health clinic in another town.  If not, bring him back to see me on Thursday.”  (I don’t see patients on Wednesday since that is the day I do Bible study with Kanko and cook with Isatu.)  No problem, she said, we will be back.  

Thursday was a crazy day.  It is ALWAYS crazy since it is market day - which brings many more than normal patients and visitors.  On top of that, we were preparing for some visitors from Sierra Leone, where I grew up.  A boarding school “sister” Kim and her 2 kids, and a former teacher, Janet, were driving across the border to spend the weekend with us.   

By that afternoon, the meal was prepared, the house was clean, and I told my patients (about 30 of them waiting there for me) that I would see sick people until our guests arrived, and then work would end.  I slowly began to wade through the crowd of kids, one at a time.  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Mamodi sitting on his mom’s lap – covered by a sheet.  Every few moments, he would jerk and cry out.  Honestly, I wasn’t really paying that close of attention as there were SO many people there that day.   

Eventually the crying out kind of pierced my awareness enough times that I stopped what I was doing and asked what the problem was.  I walked over and looked down.  He was only barely conscious, and his right thigh and left forearm were HUGE.  Bless the mom’s heart – she was just sitting there, waiting patiently for me to get to her. I said, “What happened to him?”  She replied, “I don’t know.  Yesterday he came home from playing with his friends and said that his leg hurt.  Now it is swollen and hurting him.”  My next question was obvious – “Did he fall or get hurt some other way?”  According to his friends, nothing had happened to him.  It was bizarre.

I promptly moved him to the head of the line.  Other parents don’t get frustrated about that – because I only do it when a kid is super sick, and they know that.  His little body was burning up and he was not coherent.  She said that he had been drinking, but not eating.  I told her, “Okay, we will try here in the village to get him better.  If he does not show improvement in the next 24 hours, you have to take him to the hospital (about 1.5 hours away).  She agreed.  I started him on medicine for malaria, the infection and for the fever.  I also gave her an electrolyte solution for him to drink.  I prayed over him and sent him home.

He came back the next day, slightly improved.  He was a little more conscious, though he continued to cry out in pain.  He was able to answer questions though and was drinking well.  Over the next few days, my friend Kim and I worked to get his fever down and to battle the raging infection in his body.  His right leg and left forearm got bigger and bigger, but he was improving in his consciousness and started to eat a little.  We were injecting him daily with a very strong antibiotic, and starting to see results, though we continued to fight the fever. 

 I could see the pus starting to walk to one place – as I tell my patients.  A sore on his leg opened up and began draining pus, and then they came to me and it looked like he had a glove filled with lotion on his right foot.  Instead, a thick layer of pus had leaked into the epidermis and was ready to pop.  I lanced it open, draining all of the pus, and in the process, the skin on his foot and lower leg just peeled right off, revealing a half dollar sized wound that was oozing. 

 I bandaged him up and the next day, the mom came telling me that another spot had opened on the outer aspect of his knee.  Using a scalpel, I cut a tiny nick in that place and began to push on his leg.  I have lived in Africa for many years and taken care of a LOT of infections, but Mamodi’s leg drained more pus than I have ever seen come out of one person.  It was incredible!  In the days that I took care of him, I got WAY over a gallon of pus out of that leg.

Every day it was the same thing.  While he was improving in many ways, I began to realized that there was no way that he was going to be better enough for me to leave him behind in the village as we were leaving for a 4 month home assignment.  On top of the ever draining pus, he developed an olive sized knot in his belly that caused great amounts of pain when he ate or drank anything.

I began to hint to the parents that we needed to think about sending him to another place for care before I left. 

 They didn’t want to leave me.  I said, “But I will not be here. You need to start thinking about this.”  I contacted a hospital run by a Swiss mission, but they turned me down.  I was shocked and discouraged.  They have never refused a patient before.  They wanted me to send him to Hope Clinic in the southern part of the country.  I assume it was because of his stomach – since they take care of other infections all the time.

I contacted Hope Clinic, but communication is a bit tricky for us.  We don’t have phone reception and so rely on email.  Unfortunately, the email at Hope Clinic is a bit iffy.  We happened to be in cell phone range for a few hours, so I called a nurse friend there and ask her to check with the doctor to see if I could send Mamodi down to them.   

The following day, our teammates got the message- yes, send him, but since he will likely be here for a while, they will need to stay with relatives down here until he is better.  I was so discouraged.  The hospital is 12 hours away from us and they have no relatives there.  Later, through an email, I was able to clarify that they would admit him – they were just hoping to save the family money when he got to the point of just needing wound care as an outpatient.  Since we had decided that we would pay for the hospital bills, we told them that we would cover the $4 a day it would take to keep him there.  The money was not an issue – I desperately wanted him better.

So we approached the family and told them that all was clear for him to go.  We had already informed them that we would cover the cost of the hospital, but that they were responsible for the cost of the transportation and the food while there.  They said they understood and would talk about it.  I assumed that they would talk quickly, as we had given them a heads up that it would be happening and they knew we were preparing to leave.  No such luck.  Day after day, the dad would come and say that he was “working” on getting the money.  And while Mamodi had improved from the beginning, he was still in a whole lot of pain.  And he couldn’t eat.

So day after day, he would come for a dressing change and he would cry in pain and day after day, his mom and I would cry in frustration.  We were told that the dad HAD the money to pay, he was just waiting to see if we would get frustrated and pay for it all.  We knew that was a horrible idea.  It would create problems for all the other sick people who came along and were made to suffer while the family waits us out.   Knowing that the dad could totally afford it, but was dragging his heels caused a lot of anger in me – especially when I watched Mamodi curled up on my porch, sobbing.

Finally the dad came up with the money.  It was the day we were leaving the village, so we agreed to take him as far as Faranah, where he and his mom could catch transportation down to the hospital.  The bumps in the road caused him to cry out.  We dropped them off and the mom began to cry.  I said a blessing over them and sent them on the way, praying that they would reach quickly and that Mamodi would not be in pain.

The next day, on our way to Conakry, as we were stopped at a road side mechanic, I got a call from Dr. jean informing me that Mamodi had arrived and been admitted.  He said that he would begin would care and had started him on oral antibiotics.  I was a little surprised as he seemed to be taking it very casually, but I trusted that Mamodi was in good hands. I asked if he thought the infection had reached the bone and he said that he was not sure, but that he planned to take an x-ray that following Monday.  As I got off the phone, I felt a weight roll off my shoulders.

Three nights later, as we were preparing to leave the country, I got a call from Dr. Jean, informing me that he had taken Mamodi to surgery to clean out the infection and had given him a blood transfusion.  He found that the infection was on the bone, but had not entered it yet.  He felt like Mamodi would improve now that the infection was no longer there.   

And he was right.  Mamodi has made steady progress and will likely be released soon from the hospital.  We are SO grateful for Hope Clinic and for Dr. Jean and can’t wait to get back to GKB and have Mamodi run up and shake our hands again!

Goodbyes

I have been contemplating good-byes a lot lately.  We just left our village and spent a lot of time with people – talking and saying good-bye.  “Please don’t be gone long!” was the most common phrase that I heard.  The tears we saw were genuine. I broke my heart.

Goodbyes are a part of everyone’s life.  They just are!  But living on the other side of the world adds a whole new dimension to it.

We are currently in Dakar with Ben and Kaleb in the midst of a flurry of activities to honor the seniors.  There are ceremonies and receptions and banquets.  Last night we attended JBS (junior/senior banquet).  We watched our boys interact with their friends and the other adults in their lives.  We listened as the junior class honored the seniors with written words and a funny “senior predictions” DVD.  A common phrase heard last night was “I hope we can see each other again.”

Growing up overseas and boarding school in particular is a blessing – but it is mixed with pain.  The boys have friends from ALL over the world – all over Africa, America, Saudi Arabia.  That is an amazing blessing that has helped to form who they are as men.  But it can make the good-byes difficult.  While no one knows the future, as these young men and women scatter all over the world, they really don’t know if they will see each other again.  I sat thinking about kids from American schools, who, at graduation, say goodbye, knowing that they will likely see their friends throughout the summer and on breaks from school.

Now we have to make it through Ben and Kaleb’s senior reception and graduation.  I can feel the tears looming.  It is a mixture of pride and grief.  I thought leaving my kids at boarding school was painful, but the thought of leaving them in the US when we return in the fall trumps that a hundred times over!  Not sure how we will do it – one day at a time, I suppose.  If I could be honest, it is hard from me to hear parents who cry and complain about their kids going off to college – knowing that they can drive down for the weekend, or that the kids will be back in a few weeks for fall break or Thanksgiving.   

Don’t get me wrong – I totally get that it is a transition and a time of grieving for everyone.  Life as they know it is changing and their kids are growing up and moving on.  But I wish they would remember that there are others who are leaving their kids for a much longer time at a much greater distance.  A friend of ours, who dropped their daughter off at college in the fall and then returned to Africa, told me that he struggled to listen to the parents lamenting about not seeing their kids for a few weeks, as he said good-bye to his daughter for potentially 4 years.  Really????

None of this is to elicit sympathy.  We wouldn’t trade our lives and what God has called us to do for anything.  It is a privilege to raise our kids overseas.  It is also not to belittle the grief of separation and transition that other people go through.  It really isn’t.  Maybe it is just a plea for understanding and prayer as we navigate the next few months of goodbyes to the boys in the US and to Hannah when she comes to school here in Dakar.  Next time you find yourself missing you kids who live a few hours away and are constantly available by phone, pray for a missionary who has parts of their hearts scattered all over the world.