Feverish Thoughts

Middle of the night, I am awakened, as always am by my daughter.

Every couple of hours, she wakes up to breastfeed.

Nothing new about that.

I pick her up and put her to my breast. I don't even open my eyes. I am exhausted!

All I can think about is finishing up and going back to sleep.

Except, she doesn't eat.

I keep on offering but she doesn't take my breast.

Odd.

Hubby gets up. I go back to sleep.

About 2 1/2 later, she wakes up again.

I hear her.

She is making grunting noises.

I think, "oh she is not awake yet"... because she likes to make grunting noises.

I think I should go back to sleep.

I try.

Something about the noises she is making bothers me.

I take a close look at her only to find her eyes wide open.

I touch her.

Her body is hot. Really hot.

I pick her up. I try to breast feed her. I wake up my husband.

Her temperature is 103.2.

I give her Tylenol until we figure out what to do.

She throws up.

We re-dose her.

Panic grips me.

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This was me several days ago.

It happened when all our friends (who are teachers) are out of town on their summer breaks!

The idea of stepping outside in the middle of the night and attempting to communicate to a taxi driver to take us to the right hospital was really scary.

The thought of handing over my daughter to a doctor with whom I can not communicate was terrifying.

If I were in the US, I would have driven to the nearest hospital.

In Ethiopia, I would have gone to Asegedech Hospital.

But none of the choices here were comforting.

So, I called a pediatrician I knew in the US. But she didn't have a good news for me. She told me a fever that high is considered an emergency, especially because her breathing was so uneven.

Fortunately, during all this, her fever came down a bit.

We were able to wait until the morning to go to the hospital when the English speaking pediatrician was there.

A blood work up showed no bacterial infection.

The doctor thought it was a viral infection but she didn't know what kind.

We were able to control her temperature by medication but it kept on spiking up to a 103.5 (which was very high and potentially dangerous for a baby her age).

The doctor told us to stay at the hospital until Dinbit's temperature went down and she started keeping food in her tummy. We didn't have to stay the night. Dinbit was a little better by late afternoon. We were sent home.

After several temperature spikes over the following days and panicked calls to the pediatrician, Dinbit is almost back to normal.

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Now,

Imagine a woman with a sick child living in rural Ethiopia.

She has no medication at hand.

She has no telephone.

She can't google "baby with high fever" to figure out what to do.

The nearest health post is a days walk away.

She has no choice but to watch her child fade away in her arms as she paced around like a demented being trapped in an impossible situation.

She is a mother too.

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Sometimes, I can't get over my privilege.

Especially because I have done nothing to deserve it.

Life is truly unfair.