An Unbelievable Boy named Brighton

If I tried to write everything about our day, it would be a small novel, so I will do my best to try to convey the main points, and paint pictures for you of the parts I couldn’t take pictures of. We started our day with a 9 am appointment at the Chelstone Clinic, picking up our donor for the first braces we had made soon after we arrived in Lusaka. This donor ‘happened’ to be here for two months this summer working with Campus Crusade for Christ. We took her to the physiotherapy clinic to meet Bedson and his Mom, and to see how therapy is given here in Zambia, since she is an Occupational Therapy Student. So Beth, Christine, and I went to the clinic, where we met about 10 small children and their mothers, and one boy we were expecting to meet and serve in some capacity. We began to do therapy with as many children as we could, and at one point after about half an hour, Katherine, the volunteer physical therapist, pointed to a small lump under a big fleece blanket, and exclaimed that was the baby I was there to serve today! You see, he was born on May 19th, and still weighs his birth weight, 3.5 kg, which is under 7 lbs. He lost weight, and then gained just a tad. His diagnoses are unclear: cp? failure to thrive? low cognition? a combination of all of these? I thought to myself, “God, you have clearly gifted me with children who have cognitive delay, but what about this baby? What do you expect of me?”. As Eric and I discussed the possibilities last night in preparation for the day, we talked about how to determine who to serve, because the need is so great, and what, specifically, we should do for this baby. We talked about our options. Either let the Mom keep breastfeeding, and watch the baby slowly suffer, and most likely die, or intervene as best we can, and do what we can do to support her family in their desire for life for him. We chose the second. It seems a no-brainer, but, yet, with so many babies here (it seems every woman has one on her back), some might say, what is the death of one? And, yet, our God, the Good Shepherd, left his 99 sheep, to go save the one, and so, we took this one, Brighton, to the doctors we had been recommended. We were seen fairly quickly, Brighton was weighed and examined, and the next step was for us to go to University Teaching Hospital to be admitted to get nutrition given through a feeding tube, or to get the recipe to raise his nutrition level by adding formula to breast milk. To make a very long story as short as I can, this next part took all day. We were send three different places to be admitted, then finally paid, and were send to an intake nurse (with the little white hat and all!) who weighed, checked Brighton’s temperature, and asked all the same questions we’d already gone through. We were then sent around the corner to wait again. When we were called in to the treatment room, there were 5 treatment tables, without clean sheets on the stretcher-style tables, and 2 doctors, and a nurse. We were asked the same series of questions, and Brighton wasn’t looked at in too much detail. The doctor clearly was perplexed, and had no ideas. I told him about Samuel and his feeding schedule with the formula being made a bit more concentrated than the can said to do. He got up and traded places with another doctor, who was clearly NOT excited to see me there. So far, I was the only muzungu in the whole place, and I really stood out. He was not pleased, and asked me why I was there, and how I was ‘related’ to the patient. The sarcastic part of me wanted to say that he was my nephew and that Jennipher, the Mom, was my twin, but I held myself back, and told him about Special Hope, and that I am a mother of three children who have special needs. He was very unimpressed. He went back to his series of questions, and very little hands-on, very little care, and very little hope for this Mom with the baby who is clearly so sick and not thriving, though she is doing her best.

Let me make an aside here to say that my family has had the distinct, and now, clearly uncommon privilege of knowing some of the most tender, caring and kind doctors, and that today made me even more thankful for them. There were times when I needed hope, and they gave that to me, as a mom. Jennipher needed that today, and she didn’t get it from a doctor, a nurse, or anyone at the hospital. So, I know that God had me there for that part. Her child is not an accident, God created Brighton like he is, for His glory. Her child is adorable, and needs love and food, and clothing, just like any child. These doctors have so many to care for, and so little resources, that it seems they have lost what we have taken so for granted in our tender US doctors- giving hope to one who needs it.

So, after my telling the doctor about Samuel, and his higher caloric feeding regimen from Children’s Hospital in Boston, he thought that was a good idea, and recommended that Jennipher augment her breastfeeding with formula. So, we left the “Teaching Hospital”, which is the best hospital in Lusaka for kids with special needs, we’ve heard, and my brain started to work. ‘We are really hungry, get a snack. Go to a store that has formula, a bottle, and maybe a breast pump. Take her home to our house to show her how to make formula, boil the water to sterilize the bottle, etc. Oh, my, our Nyanja lesson started at home 1/2 hour ago! How did it get to be 4 pm?’ I went to a “Chemist”, and bought formula, large can, 130,000 KW or about $25, bought a bottle for 20,000 KW (less than $2.50), and bought a breast milk expresser for 69,500 KW (about $12), because the breast pumps were $120! Ran into the grocery store next door to buy us each a juice box, and a banana, to stave off the hunger, and drove home. Explained to her how to mix the formula, tried it, made the opening on the bottle bigger (glad for about the 1,000th time that I packed my Cutco knives in my suitcase!), and ahhhh, success, as Brighton drank and drank. Gave Jennipher a snack, changed Brighton’s nappy, and drove her home, with our Nyanja teacher, since our lesson was waylaid, and Maggie and Mollie since I hadn’t seen them all day. When we got to the edge of her compound, and I dropped her off, Jennipher was very thankful, and hugged and hugged me, and I realized then what we all need is a little hope. The doctors didn’t give her any. The nurses didn’t give her any.

I didn’t really do anything for Brighton. But, through God’s leading and timing, gave Jennipher hope. Hope that someone cares and loves her son. Hope that he will grow and become strong, Hope that things won’t always be this way. So, thank you, God, for using us today in the lives of this family. Please pray with us that little Brighton grows, and this will reveal what other delays he has. If any, at all! Thank you.