It seems that every outreach, one individual child steals my heart. This time, Aminata has, hands down, taken the cake.
Oh, there have been other children, of course.
Like Bed 11 from last week: the 4-month old whose name I can’t even remember because his mother referred to him exclusively as Duck. Duck had an incomplete cleft lip, on the left side that Dr. Gary repaired. Conveniently, this is the same diagnosis and location of my own infantile malformation – which, to Duck’s mama, clearly meant that we were to be married. And thus, Duck & I are in love.
And then there is Kadia, who you have to tickle fight to the bed, in order to get her situated and stationary enough to start her NG feed. At which point she screams at you for a couple of minutes. Then chatters on about what I can only assume is a consideration of how many stickers she currently has plastered to her forehead and what strategy she should adopt to get more out of us.
And, of course there is Sia – our “almost too late in the outreach, but God seems to always provide the way” Burkitt’s Lymphoma kid who is literally a walking wonder. She and I were on a little walk the other day, hand-in-hand, her chatting away, again in some unknown language about who knows what, and I was struck by how blessed I am to get to participate in something that, in any other context, would be a once in a lifetime kind of miracle. And it happens here every day.
But, when all is said and done, it’s Aminata who I hold most near and dear to my heart. When we get up to deck 7 at the end of day shift to allow the patients some “fresh” air time, it’s Ami that I look for. It’s Ami that I will do any amount of running up and down the deck in Sub-Saharan African heat to make giggle. It’s Ami who brings me exceeding joy, watching her take little baby steps when she used to be barely able to sit up. It’s Ami who reminds me of God’s work in all of our lives when I watch her play with toys, not just stare at them, and know that her brain is now nourished enough to allow for close to developmentally appropriate mental processing.
The story for Aminata is far from over. She has a long way to go. More surgery needed. Money needing to be raised to get her to wherever that surgery will need to happen. Her body needs to clear itself of the infection that seems to stick around regardless of the assorted cocktails of antibiotics we have pumped into her. Her mama needs to learn how to treat whatever related mild ailments may surface, as they seem to be having the habit of doing. She actually has a lot to figure out in the next week, before the hospital gets packed up and the ship sails away.
She is by no means home free. But now she has a host of people praying and wholeheartedly invested in her ultimate well-being. That should serve her as well as anything else could.