Bedside Vigil

I am composing this thought at the bedside or our now 11 day old pneumonia patient. His name is Miguel Angel. He is a beautiful Honduran baby with lots of dark hair and big eyes. He is so sick. I learned his name today so that if he dies, I want to say I knew him. Amber and I are praying hard and doing all we know to do to help him and he is fighting for his life. It is 1:35 am and Amber and I cant leave his bedside. We have been here at the hospital all day already. We were able to sneak a quick nap in this afternoon...I know what your thinking....NAP?! Well, let me tell you it was much needed. Since my last post, Amber and I returned to the hospital in the evening to respond to a crisis with Miguel Angel then we went back home for 2 hours of sleep. Up at midnight to return to help John with a delivery (Healthy baby girl at 0105 9/19) then back home for a few more hours of attempted sleep (Amber had Richards snoring, I had a monkey howling at me all night!). Up at 0730 to head back to the hospital....Whew! So, we needed our nap! Ok, back to baby Angel. He has continued to decline with more episodes of decreased oxygenation and color changes. We have to "bag" him in order to bring his sats up and we have had to do this more and more. God brought us to Honduras for baby Angel. Of this I am sure. The nursing care here in Honduras is very different than in the states. the Honduran nurses do NOT have the same training as we do and are unprepared to care for such a sick baby. Plus, they are incredibly overwhelmed with patients currently. It is now 0206 on September 20th. He is doing better. Equiptment down here can be unreliable. You have to make due with what you have. we were using a very old and used baby saturation probe that only gave us an accurate reading when the wire was in one place. Very frustrating when you have such a sick kiddo. Richard went on a hunt and miraculously found an adult finger probe that, with some manipulation by Amber, worked much better. Now, we are running out of O2. The oxygen compressors which are supposed to produce 5 liters dont appear to be working that well. Everytime we have weaned Angel to 5 liters or less we try to switch to the compressor to conserve the cannister oxygen. When we do, his sat levels drop and we have to start all over again. So, he has to stay on the cannister O2 and we pray it will last until someone brings the new full cannisters. 0520 am, Making progress with Angel. We just had to leave him alone! He is septic (infection is in his blood) so stimulation causes him to desaturated. Sats are stable however, when he is resting and not stimulated. He is even sucking on his oral catheter (a tube into his mouth down to his stomach). What a good sign. A little ray of hope. Thank you Lord. Now if we can just keep the Honduran staff from messing with him! So, now it is 4 pm on the 20th. Amber and I slept from about 930 to 2ish. When we left Angel, the pediatrician was in and our replacement was an american nurse anesthetist (sp?) so we could sleep well knowing he was in good hands. But, he also wasnt doing as well he had been because of all the morning noise and activity. (blood draw, xray, ect.) Quick report from Richard is that he is fairly stable. We will be heading down soon to check on him. Our prayer is for healing for baby Angel. This is a hard place to live and he is strong, but he is still just a newborn. He needs all our prayers. The Lord has a plan and we are fully ready to participate in the plan as he sees fit. We just so want that plan to be healing. Well, this is the end of a very long post. I tried to import pics but with no success. Will definitely be checking with my geek friends to try to figure it out. Have lots of pics to share so far.
Hug your children, kiss your family, and count your blessings....The Team