Heartbreaking

I am continuing to work with Salah, the little girl that I spoke about yesterday with the congenital defects.  She is still needed almost constant suctioning.  Today the doctor ordered that we try and perform feedings with the bottle, but she will almost immediatly start to choke, and she doesn't try top suck (probably because she has never successfully fed from the bottle or nipple.)

Her mother is an older lady (40+) who is having a very hard time dealing with her daughter's medical needs.  I noticed that she has had no visitors, which is rare in Palestinian culture.  I learned today that she is actually from Bethlaham, so she is a long way from home.  She also doesn't have any other kids.  She is trying to be positive about her daughter, but when little Salah vomitted everything that ws given her, the mother broke down and stated to cry.  If the child survives, then this women's next few years is going to be spent caring for a child that can not even eat.  The mother has been very good about doing the suctioning and feedings herself, but today I had to take over when she was threatening a nervous breakdown.  Even if I could speak English, there would be no words of comfort that I would be able to give her.

She must have been looking forward to having a child very much. Of course, there is no guarentee that any child will be born healthy, but I am sure that she was not expecting to suddently take care of a child that is so ill.  I tried to get her to leave this afternoon, even for a few hours.  She left overnight a few days ago, and returned in much better spirits, but the mother didn't want to leave.  The child will be discharged soon, and hopefully will some day be able to have surgery to correct some of her defects. But I worry that the baby will die much before that.

We also got a terrible case of meningococcal meningitis. I was horrified to see that he was not put on droplet isolation, but they did have contact isolation (of sorts).  He was covered with sores due to a very high PTT that was probably caused by DIC.