Hemoglobin.

 

A month ago she gave birth at home to her second child --a girl.

Because of untreated malaria she was already anemic when she started to bleed postpartum. She bled a lot.

She bled and bled; but she lived.         --Barely.

A month ago she gave birth to a healthy child but she has been too weak to hold her. She nurses lying down between episodes of vomiting.

She is severely anemic; and the malaria that destroyed her blood cells still runs in her veins --a month later.

Only after her family realized she was at death’s door did they carry her in. Too weak to walk by herself, she stumbled in with two strong men holding her on either side.

Tom saw her and immediately recognized the signs. He started her on malaria medicines, blood replacement fluids, and tested her hemoglobin.

Not having a lab technician we were not sure of the results but they were better than nothing.

She was said to have a hemoglobin of 2.8 mg/dl!

A normal level for an adult female should be 12-16 mg/dl. Again... I suspect the reading could have been off a little (or a lot), as the person who did it is not professionally trained.

Regardless, she needs a blood transfusion.

Her family rallied and got money to pay for the fuel to Wau, and we took her by ambulance this morning. Please pray for her to get the blood she needs and to make a full recovery.

You may be asking yourselves why she didn’t come earlier for help...
I asked the same thing. As it turns out, she lives 5 hours away by foot. Such distances are not realistic for a woman in her condition. It took a month of family discussions and pressure for them to bring her. I’m so glad they did.

Please pray for her to live. Her name is Adut. Thanks.

Engorged...

On Friday, one of my prenatal patients came in a few days postpartum with a seriously engorged left breast. It was 2 and 1/2 times it’s normal size and shiny with stretching. It looked outrageously painful.

We helped express a lot of the milk and even got the baby to nurse from it. Well, I’m not sure what happened over the weekend... but she came in today with open erosions on her skin. Engorgement has progressed to Abscess ridiculously fast.

Or had it? It is guessed that her family in an effort to help with the engorgement continued to express the milk very aggressively. They made things worse. Now she has three large erosions on her breast. It is still just as engorged. I can barely imagine the pain she must be in.

Thinking that it had become an abscess, Dennis incised it today. No pus was removed but a drain was placed in and we’ll be caring for her daily until it improves. I honestly don’t know what to think.... other than ouch!

I’ll keep you posted.