November 10, 2010
Today was quite a depressing day, a day that has made me grateful for a lot of things, and made me never want to relive the day again. So today I woke up to the usual of hurrying and getting dressed, pulling my hair up into a pony tail and then ran to class making it just in time to sing the hymn. After class I begrudgingly ran up the stairs to go to clinicals at the Augusta Victoria hospital. I walk into the back door of the hospital not wanting to be there, I would rather go to bed and enjoy a wonderful day of sleeping and getting over these stupid body aches that I have been experiencing for the past two days. But instead I sucked it up, said a little prayer to help me have a better attitude and trekked on to have a really good day that taught me a lot. I walked onto the pediatric oncology unit and I was teamed up with a little lady with different colored freckles on her face and the cutest little prego belly but of course I was too scared to ask her if she was pregnant, not wanting to risk the possibility that she could just be fat. I watched as she inserted IV after IV after IV on these little children that were coming onto the oncology unit and preparing to go and receive their chemo treatment. Was this sad you may ask? Oh yes it was really sad, it was so sad to watch these children try to be strong and try not to cry as they get yet another needle stabbed into their little, fragile veins. It was sad to watch as they finally stopped being strong and the tears started rolling down their faces and the screams started erupting from their little mouths. Their mothers would come and hold their children trying to calm them as much as possible. Was it sad to watch children that are not quite a year old being hooked up to their chemo or their albumin and watch as these little babies are held by their strong mothers, their mothers trying to be strong as they are wondering in their minds, “why is this happening to me, why is it me sitting here with my baby fighting this cancer, fighting to keep this life going, trying to give this child a life to live?” Was it sad to watch the reactions of different parents sit helplessly and know that their child is going to die before the week is through? Yes this was all something that reached into my heart and into my soul wrenching it, making me feel sick inside. Was it inspiring to see these mothers of all of these children join together to pray and be with a mother whose child would not make it through the day? Yes, this was something that gave me hope that let me know of the love that Christ has for these people that don’t even believe in him, that he won’t leave any of his children alone during their time of need, he will be there, and he will send his angels.
So to stop with the small overlook of the day let me tell a few of my experiences. So my first hard thing of the day is right after I was introduced to my nurse I walked into the outpatient room and saw a little baby, around 7 or 8 months laying on the table, waiting to have another needle stabbed into its little body. My nurse walked in helped undress the little girl and handed a urine collection bag to the mother. The swiftness and ease that this mother had with putting on the urine collection bag showed me that she had done this many times before, this is something she was used to, something she had to do to her little baby day in and day out. I watched as my nurse got the Herber needle ready to poke into this little baby’s port-o-cath in her little chest. This was hard to watch as the needle wouldn’t go in and the baby scream more and more as the nurse presses more and more on the needle with it finally stopping being stubborn and finally going into the catheter. It was sad to watch such a young child have to go through so much, have to have so much medical treatment at such a young age. It was so sad to watch this mother struggle with this little baby I’m sure wishing in her mind that she could be at home, with a healthy baby, holding her, letting her play, and watching as she grows and learns about different things every day, instead she makes the daily trek to the hospital to water her baby get poked, watching her baby getting hooked up to an IV every day, every day the same, every day a reminder that your baby is sick, that your baby will never be normal, everyday a reminder that your baby may not live much longer. This was the first soul wrenching activity of the day.
The next soul wrenching activity of the day was dealing with two different children that won’t make it much longer. The first child we helped was a little girl with bladder cancer that had spread to the rest of her organs in the pelvic cavity. She had high Potassium so we mixed up an oral solution of K-exalate which is medication that causes Potassium to be pulled out of the tissue and blood and into the stool and urine. The little girl was too sick to be able to keep down the oral solution so we were forced to try to give it to her through an enema. You could tell that she was in so much pain, you could tell she was in the last stages of her cancer. She had scabs on all of her fingers and her lips from where she had been picking. We tried to give her the enema and I was the one that was elected to hold her little head and little body to the side as the dad helped the nurse try to give her the enema. She screamed and screamed as the fluid tried to make its way into her body. Even though she went through all the pain, even though we tried our hardest to make her pain worth it, she couldn’t hold the medication in and it was all in vain. After the procedure failed I was left to help hold little girl to the side as the dad cleaned up the mess. He cleaned and cleaned and cleaned trying to make his little girl feel as comfortable as possible. He then rolled her back over onto her back and she began to cry some more. He looked at her pubic are and saw how swollen it was and lightly touched it to see the amount swelling. The little girl let out a loud, pain-filled scream. The dad felt helpless as he punched the bed and began to cry. It was so sad to watch this father as he tried to take care of his little girl, as he tried to make her feel better, as he tried to be strong for her, try to show her that everything was going to be ok, but finally breaking down and crying with his little girl showing her that he was scared too that he didn’t want her to leave him any more than she wanted to leave him. I snuck out of the room quietly trying to let this moment be theirs, be theirs forever to remember and to cherish. A moment that that dad can have of his little girl when the years pass after she is gone, a time that he can look back on and remember that his little girl was strong, she tried to fight, she wanted to be with her daddy so much but it just wasn’t meant to be. As I walked away trying to not let anyone see that my eyes were brimming with tears I said a little prayer, praying for that little family, praying for them to be comforted. Well with no break between this moment and the next it was a day were I couldn’t even figure out my emotions, I couldn’t even recognize what I was feeling. We walked into a room, I thought it was just going to be a regular doing vital signs on a child to make sure they were good enough to be able to do their round of chemo but no it was something much different. We walked in the room and I quickly realized that this was a room full of sadness and room full of dread not wanting the next few hours to happen. I walked up to the bed and saw this beautiful little girl. Even though I couldn’t see her face she was beautiful. I began to hook up the blood pressure cuff, and tried putting a thermometer in her little armpit to measure her temperature. I tried so hard not to wake her up, I tried so hard not to disturb the mom and little girl as they laid together in the bed. To my dismay the little girl woke up and rolled over crying and looking at me with these eyes that were swollen and purple. At first I was thinking oh she must be abused or something but later I realized that these are the effects from the cancer she had. She had a neuroblastoma, a horrible childhood cancer that usually isn’t caught until it is too late . . . so sad, so heart wrenching, something that every mother dreads being told. This family had desperately tried everything even experimental surgeries in Jordan, trying so hard to save their little girl, but it hadn’t worked, it was too late, they had to now realize and learn how to let her go. We then left coming back a few minutes later with bags and bags of plasma full of clotting factor. Things that would help her, keep her here a little longer, things that would allow her family to have a few more precious hours with their little girl. We gave her the plasma going in there every 15 minutes to change the bag. I watched as her breathing became more and more labored, as you could tell that her body was ready to be done, it was ready to sleep. We walked in one last time to hook up blood to help her, help her to hold on just a little longer. I walked in and watched this mother pull out her little Qur’an, I watched as she sat up in the bed and placed her hand on her little girl’s body, I watched as her weary eyes read the words that she prayed hoping that these words of faith, these words of God would help her little girl, help her in any way possible, whether it was to stay a little longer, whether was for her to pass faster, whether it was for her to not be in pain I will never know but I know they were words uttered by a mother just wanting her little girl to be happy. I watched as another mother saw what was occurring came in and began to pray with the mother. Helping her through the hard time, helping her and in her heart hoping that if someday when her child doesn’t win the fight, someday when she has to go through the same thing that someone will be there for her, someone will be there to help her, to help her stay strong, to help her pray for her child as the child is ready to leave the world. I left the room muttering my own prayer, blessing this family, blessing the little girl, hoping that they could someday be together again. The time for us to leave came around and I walked through the halls of the hospital looking at the smiling faces of the different children that were still alive, still fighting, still wanting to have a life to live. I watched and looked at the hope in their faces knowing that they weren’t going to give up, they were going to fight, they were going to keep going, they were not going to let this cancer take them, they wanted to show that cancer who was boss. I looked in and watched the parents who children had lost the will to fight, who had become too tired to fight anymore. I watched as these parents just lay with their children, holding them, wanting to keep them forever but knowing that it wasn’t possible. I walked out of the hospital in a stupor not quite knowing what I was feeling, all I know is that I walked out of that hospital with a prayer in my heart for all those that were suffering and a prayer of gratitude that I haven’t had to go through that. I prayer of gratitude to know that all of my tests from a few months ago came back negative, that I wasn’t at home right now fighting, fighting to live. I’m so grateful for life, I’m so grateful for the gospel that teaches me the plan of salvation and teaches me that even though I may lose someone that I will see them again, that we can embrace each other again. I got home and remained in this stupor, in fact I’m still in it. There are still tears rolling down my face for these little families, for the little children that don’t get to go to school, don’t get to grow up, don’t get to get married, and raise little children of their own. But at least I do know this, even though they may die here they have a loving Heavenly Father that is waiting for them, embracing them as they enter into his presence.
