A Mother's Love

 

Monday, May 11, 2009

A Mother's Love

This lady ran barefoot through the streets of Soleil carrying her seizing two-year-old daughter.

Her daughter, Abigaille, started having a fit out of the blue last Thursday morning. She hadn't had a fever and never had seizures prior to this one.

Mom and her 7 kids live in Beleco which is about one and one-half miles from the pediatric clinic.

As Abigaille seized, this lady suffered. She cried, shook her head, and extended her arms pleading to her God to stop this. And she picked up her daughter and started running.

When I examined Abagaille, she seemed somnolent, but intermittently she would clench her teeth and seem to smile...which made me worry. But she blinked when I touched her eyelids and cried when she received an IM injection...and so I felt better. 

Abigaille's seizures stopped. Her blood glucose came back at 47. We gave her sips of powdered milk formula as she looked around and appeared unconcerned.

Mom was relieved that her terrible seizures had stopped, and I told mom to come back the next morning.

I should have done much more from a diagnostic workup, but I couldn't under the circumstances. 

Mom and Abigaielle returned the next morning and both looked fine.

The hundreds of thousands of people in Soleil like Abigaielle and her mom deserve so much more than I provided.