Little baby no-name

There is never a dull hour here in Kisoro (apart from the few hours week when you wonder why on earth no one has ever though of building a cinema or bowling alley in rural Africa)

The week started with 12 children being put into isolation due to flu. For some of the smaller and sick-prone children, this turned into Pneumonia. For Baby A, this is frequent occurrence because he has chronic lung disease (it is so sad to see him poorly because he is quite possibly the cutest kid ever) Over a few days, more beds were moved from bedrooms into isolation until we had all of the crawlers and toddlers with temperatures, coughs and snotty noses. On the Tuesday night, Jenny had prepared us that in the morning she was expecting to have to take some children to the hospital because their Pneumonia was getting serious, but when the morning came every single child was recovering well! It was fantastic news, and now a week on, we only have 3 children still in isolation.

Wednesday, was the toughest and most emotional day that I have had here. Jenny had told us in the morning that a little baby had been abandoned by his mother at Kisoro Hospital a few days after his birth, but because we have babies coming out of our ears, Ezra felt that we could not take on another little one. We were told that he was a premature, but healthy baby who was maintaining his temperature well and feeding from a bottle. If P.V said no to this little boy, then he would have no future because he would certainly die because he had no one. Certain death was not good enough for Jenny, Ruth and I, so I spent hours researching other baby homes in Uganda that we could transfer him to. Finally I found Sanyu Babies Home. We phoned Sanyu and they agreed that when the baby was fit enough to travel the 10 hours to Kampala that they would take him. This was great news – until little baby no-name arrived…

Jenny had gone home and left us the paperwork, equipment and a quick briefing so that we could admit the baby without her. They arrived at 6:30pm and as soon as we saw his little head we knew there was a problem. He was TINY. The smallest baby I have ever seen. He had a nasal feeding tube and  was naked, wrapped in a thin cotton sheet (You may think Africa is hot, but the rainy season definitely isn’t.) I went to weigh him, but he was freezing. My first panic was that he hadn’t survived the journey from the hospital to Potters. Jenny rushed down and took us to Kisoro hospital where we were sent away again because they didn't have an incubator, so we trekked to Matolere Hospital. When we arrived a nurse told us that they had no power so the incubator  wasn't working. It was very obvious that they didn't want to take little baby no-name, so when I was told to  hand him over, walk away and not to look back – I just fell apart. Even though I knew he wouldn't survive without the incubator, it broke my heart to leave him.

Some happier news – Squeak is so much better, eating a tonne, and has moved down to P.V! He is growing into his skin now and is starting to look more and more like his beautiful brother. However, his beautiful brother is looking less like his beautiful self. His head has swollen and looks like one of those aliens that you get at the fairground. He has been diagnosed with water on the brain, and his fitting has become worse. We are waiting to see if he can have an operation in April to relieve the pressure.

On Saturday, we were taken up a cultivated volcano. We were followed up by about 12 children (only a few of them had shoes) who I soon made friends with when I challenged them to a race up the volcano. It was a really nice walk, although the weather was pretty English!

Water and electricity have been very... unreliable this week, and internet connection have been awful (hence th late posting of this blog) Hopefully, our water will be back on tonight so we can actually shower insted of bucket bathing in rain water. Yes, it was awful.