Mary's Story: Part Two

The story continues...

On Saturday 11^th May we get a phone call to say Mary was in labour. And here it is… the moment we’d been waiting for, make or break time for Mary and her baby. Mbale does not have any neo-natal intensive care, there are no incubators and no specialist care wards. We were uncertain whether to try and take her to Kampala, but in the end I realised that we had to trust God and the midwives where we were and that was that - I had to let go of my western expectations, fears and worries.

After a tense few hours (involving a very weak mother, a 20 minute power-out and the midwife answering a mobile phone mid-way through pushes), Mary gave birth, by normal and fairly uncomplicated delivery to a small but apparently healthy little boy who was unanimously named Miracle. They were discharged the next day and sent back to J.O.Y Hospice, the clinic where Mary has been cared for since December. 

Baby Miracle, one day old

Everything seems well, it truly is a miracle and we’re all on cloud nine. We’re so utterly amazed that it went to smoothly and that both mum and baby Miracle were still alive.  

However, the next day, Miracle is rushed back into Mbale main hospital with complications and suspected internal bleeding. The Acute Children’s Ward in Mbale Regional Hospital is a room with only four beds; each holding three children and a lingering mother or guardian. For the time we were on the ward there was one nurse and one medical officer coming through sporadically. It was overwhelmingly helpless. 
The one redeeming part was that by God's grace we happened to have a British paediatric intensive care nurse, Sarah who had arrived in Mbale just a fortnight earlier. Sarah was able to take over the care of Miracle and stayed with him for the whole day. It a very tense time as she was making decisions that only doctors would make in the UK. What a God-send!

While baby Miracle was fighting for his life, Mary was readmitted into hospital with severe abdomen pain and concerns of post-birth complications. She could barely walk for the pain and was being bounced from ward to ward. There were no available wheelchairs, no doctors around... no apparent system to help such patients. She was eventually seen in the Maternity Ward and fortunately discharged a few hours later.

Baby Miracle’s condition had continued to deteriorate, he was passing a lot of blood from both ends and was fading rapidly. His breathing was getting shallower and Sarah felt there was nothing else we could do with the resources available. 

In Mbale there is an exceptional children’s hospital, CURE, a specialist neurosurgery facility focused on Hydrocephalus and Spina Bifida cases. Due to their specialisation, they  normally can't take outside cases, but amazingly agreed to open their ICU to Miracle. Miracle was put in a baby warmer, under phototherapy lights for jaundice, and given fluids and medicine. And while we didn’t know if he would make it through the night, we knew he was being given the best chance he could hope for in Mbale. A chance he might never have had if there weren’t this gaggle of strangers fighting for him to survive, and an amazing God taking care of Him.

Thankfully Mary was able to visit Miracle within 24 hours, and finally hold her baby boy. It turned out he had Necrotizing Enterocolitis, a condition common in premature babies and very treatable with the right diagnosis and medicine. Just three days later Miracle was discharged having received exceptional care from the CURE staff.  And now both mother and baby are back in J.O.Y. Hospice as Mary continues to be treated for her burns.

And so her treatment goes on. She will still need to have her wounds dressed by medical staff for the foreseeable future. Seven months later she still screams in agony every time they change the dressings. In June she will meet with a plastic surgeon from a private hospital in Entebbe who may be able to help her with further treatment for her wounds. Miracle will be registered with a local paediatrician who will hopefully be able to monitor his situation and help to ensure he grows to be a healthy little boy.

This story is both tragic and beautiful. It tells of the power and ability for our choices to either build or destroy life. It shows the significance of unity, the power and necessity of combined skills and gifts and the privilege it is to demonstrate Gods love through practical care. It has shown me the dedication of a mother, who for 7 months has slept on a mat on the floor by the side of her sick daughters bed; a mother who has helped her 17 year old to wash, use the bathroom, to eat and to dress. It has shown doctors and nurses who aren’t just medical professionals, but people who treat their patients with extreme love, grace and tenderness, despite the extreme resource limitations they are forced to contend with. It has shown how complete strangers all over the world really want to know that a vulnerable mother and baby had a chance to survive. This story has reminded me just how unique God has made us all, how much he loves us and how much he loves us to love others. And it has reminded me that every single life is worth fighting for. Miracle is a gift from God, a glimmer of hope in a story that seemed hopeless. 

Mary is one person in a crowd of thousands that we’ve been able to help. There are many many others we can’t help. Does that mean we shouldn’t have helped her? I don’t believe so. I believe we had an opportunity to love this one girl well and we’ve been blessed to do so. Mary’s future is still one that likely expects many many more challenges, especially health wise, but some battles have been won… and we give thanks for that. Many people have paid a high price to love Mary. She is completely and utterly worth it.

And as Mother Teresa once said... 

“I never look at the masses as my responsibility; I look at the individual. I can only love one person at a time - just one, one, one. So you begin. I began - I picked up one person. Maybe if I didn't pick up that one person, I wouldn't have picked up forty-two thousand....The same thing goes for you, the same thing in your family, the same thing in your church, your community. Just begin - one, one, one.”

And that's what we must do. We love. One by one by one. Thank you for following this story.   

N.B.. I haven't posted any photos of how Mary looks now because she is so utterly ashamed of her appearance. She does all she can to hide her face even when its just me in the room. It's been such a roller coaster for her and in order to respect her privacy I can't post her picture. 



Can you Help?
Mary’s care has so far cost us over £1000. This far exceeds our normal budget for health support but we were left with little choice than to continue with sponsoring her care in faith.

If you are able and would like to contribute towards Mary's care (previous and ongoing), please do so here. 

If you would like to generally support JENGAs Hospital Ministry 'Hands of Love', which seeks to help other patients unable to afford medical care, please click here.

  

For Further Information: 

JENGA: www.jengauganda.org    Email: Tjvale@gmail.com  

CURE Hospital Uganda:  www.cure.org

JOY Hospice, Mbale: www.mbalehospice.org