Many of you will remember my previous blogs about Thanduxolo, the little boy from one of our carepoints who had a distended abdomen and eventually needed surgery and a colostomy. Some of you may have seen the recent updates that he needed emergency surgery and the pleas for financial assistance to pay for the surgery and his resultant care at a private hospital here in Manzini.
Here is an update and another plea for financial help!
We had taken Thanduxolo to the government hospital three different times in as many days due to severe distension of his abdomen, pain, and vomiting. After the third visit, his family called and asked for a ride home, as he was so weak he could not ride public transport. When I got to the hospital they told me that they were supposed to come back in two weeks, when his surgeon would be back from vacation, and had been given Panado (essentially Tylenol) for pain. As we made a plan to get him to my car, I realized that he was barely conscious, lying on the bench outside the clinic on a blanket. His grandmother carried him to the car, but he looked so lifeless, except for the occasional moan or groan when jostled, that I honestly wasn’t sure he would survive the trip home, much less two weeks at his homestead, at least an hour from any medical care.
After talking to Steve and Allison, I decided that we should at least have a pediatrician at the Women and Children’s Hospital in Manzini look at him and confirm that it would be okay for him to go home and wait another two weeks before seeing his surgeon.
The pediatrician examined him briefly and firmly stated that this child was very dehydrated, severely malnourished, had a probable bowel obstruction and was in a critical situation. They recommended he be admitted immediately. I called Jumbo and he of course agreed that we needed to do what we could to help him, even though we realized that the costs of a private hospital were going to be high, and could go higher depending on the treatments needed.
After 24 hours of IV fluids and pain control, the doctors decided that they couldn’t wait any longer for him to stabilize: they would need to operate first thing the next day to try to resolve the obstruction and see what might need to be done in the future to be able to reverse his colostomy. The anesthesiologist told me that if it wasn’t an emergency, she would not even consider taking a patient as weak and compromised as Thanduxolo into surgery. The surgeon painted a grim picture of what he thought recovery would be like, should Thanduxolo happen to survive the procedure. He essentially told us that he felt we might never be able to get him off the respirator after the surgery, but that he would surely die if the surgery was not attempted.
Even though he couldn’t talk or even move much because of all the tubes and two IV lines, Thanduxolo asked for us to come to his bed and pray with him before going to the OR. What was supposed to be a two hour surgery took four, but the surgeon returned with good news: he had been able to remove the obstruction and take some biopsies of the diseased colon, and Thanduxolo was stable but would be in ICU for at least 48 hours.
So many of you were praying for him during this crucial time and God answered our prayers! He was strong enough to breathe on his own in less than 24 hours and was discharged from the ICU as soon as the 48 hours was up.
After gradually adding clear liquids and then soft foods to his diet, he began to be strong enough to stand and walk on his own for the first time in weeks. He had not even been able to SIT for a very long time because his abdomen was so painful and distended, forcing him to have to lie down all the time.
Thanduxolo was discharged today from the hospital! He is still very weak, and has a long way to go towards full recovery, but he was so glad to go home! We will go back to see the surgeon in one week. Hopefully all the results from the biopsies will be completed and we will then make a plan for future treatments and eventually a reversal of the colostomy.
We are so very thankful for the wonderful care Thanduxolo received while at Women and Children’s Hospital. He was a very popular patient and everyone from the doctors and nurses right down to the lady who delivered the meals was so proud to see him well enough to go home. The nurses were so thoughtful and kind to his family throughout the visit, giving his grandmother an extra bed to sleep in and trying their best to make her comfortable and to help her understand what was going on with Thanduxolo every step of the way.
However, as I am sure you can imagine, without any kind of insurance, the bill for a 10 day hospital visit, 4 hour emergency surgery, blood work, biopsies and 2 days in ICU is quite staggering. This is where we need your help. We need to raise …………… as soon as possible. Honestly, it is a scary feeling to see a bill that high, but I know that to God, it is nothing. That He has his hand on this boy and has had a plan for his life since before he was born. And I know that YOU will respond to this need.
I can’t wait to see how He provides and I will give you an update next week once we make a plan for future treatment.
Thanks for reading my long, long blog and for caring for ‘the least of these’.
