Dec 03 2008
And Life Goes On - By Dixie Bickel December 3rd
I am working on several proposals today. I also need to take my son, Steeve, downtown to buy some Christmas lights and decorations. Steeve loves Christmas! He loves the music, the lights, and the presents! We put the decorations up this past weekend and we are ready to celebrate the holidays!
We have 6 volunteers coming today for a week. We will have 32 people around the dinner table tonight! It is stressful at times when we have so many visitors at the orphanage, but it is also fun to meet new people and get to visit at dinner time.
Finally, we are getting some response from the US Consulate for some visas that have been pending for quite some time. We will be having several American families here in the next week or two uniting with their children before Christmas. I so love seeing the children leave to spend Christmas with their “forever” families!
We also put 5 dossiers into the French Embassy today and I need your prayers that the visas will be issued before Christmas. We want these children to go home before Christmas Day!
Baby Youline, who weighed 1 pound 10 ounces on admission, was sent home at the beginning of November weighing over 7 pounds! Her very young mother had stayed here at the nursery with Youline and breast fed her and Youline did so well. She was never sick and was quite spoiled with love by the time she went home.
Well, Monday, Youline returned to us quite sick. For some reason, the mother decided to give her a bottle. She cut the end off the nipple to make a bigger hole, so that she could get more milk out of the bottle, and Youline aspirated milk into her lungs! She was not breathing well when she arrived with respirations of 90 per minute and a heart rate of 180 beats per minute! We started her on oxygen, IV fluids, antibiotics and nebulizer treatments. Her lungs are full of mucous.
We all are upset with the mother. The nurses have yelled at her for her negligence and I am sure they will not let her take Youline back home any time soon! Today, Youline seems to be doing a little better. She is still on oxygen and IV fluids and nebulizer treatments, but her respirations are better and her heart rate is down. Youline needs your prayers that she will get well and be the healthy little girl that she was before she went home.
Life is very fragile in Haiti…
