The Right Thing..

I debated heavily whether I was going to write about this. The only person outside of Kole who knows about it is Teresa. My reluctance is born in part from the fear that I'd come off stinking of self glorification. The other part from knowing somewhere, someone will possibly be waiting to rake my butt over the coals for it.

I decided that, in the right context, I'll neither sound self promoting nor guilty of 'breaking the rules'.

Growing up, as most kids do, I would ask my dad for advice (or a solution) for problems that I had. Invariably, his answer was, "Do what you think is right".
It used to drive me nuts. At some point in my (pseudo) adult life, I came to understand what he meant. This was one of those times.

I was finishing up reading malaria slides in the lab when our project physician, Gaston, asked if I could come help and draw some blood from a sick 4 day old that was a really difficult stick. I told him I'd be happy to have a look. I grabbed a few supplies just in case I saw a vein I liked.

After walking through the maternity ward we came to the last bed and I walked up on what I would have though was a corps of a newborn. He was as yellow as a gold brick from jaundice and as dehydrated as I've ever seen. There was a gaggle of nurses and docs standing around as I made for the bedside. Understandably, the mother was frantic and crying hysterically, making the perception of heat, humidity, and pressure even more intense as I examined the lethargic infant.

He barely squeaked as I moved him around looking for any indication of a vessel with fluid in it. I saw one that looked promising in his left arm so I pulled out the smallest needle I had (which also happened to be the longest, further upsetting the mother)and pierced his dry, wrinkled, jaundiced skin. I was able to get it into the vein, like tapping a maple tree, and let the blood flow out and drip into the purple top tube.

After running the blood, the staff decided he was in need of a transfusion or he wouldn't make it through the night. They typed and cross matched his blood (see my previous post for the other part of the story) only to find out he was A positive, and the only donors available were AB and B type. Since there is no way to store blood here, it is donated and transfused in real time, on demand.

After Gaston, told me what was going on I knew, without hesitation, what I was about to do. I told him, if he'll clear it with the staff, they could take it from me.

Military guys always know their blood type, mine is A positive.

After about 30 seconds of discussion, one of the lab technicians came up to me with what looked like a garden hose in his hand and asked me to roll up my sleeve.

The baby was transfused throughout the night.

The next morning Gaston and I went straight to the maternity ward to check on the patient. Remarkably, most of his color had returned and he was feeding. The previous weeks of relentless frustration had disappeared and I felt like I could absorb any problems and deal with it.

Now what, you ask, are you making a fuss about? Well, a few things came to mind after it was all over. Technically, I was practicing in a foreign country, without local clearance, aside from the staff, who were grateful. But gratitude won't pay for legal expenses were something to happen. Also, I let someone stick a needle (a very large needle) into my arm in the middle of the jungle, in a country where HIV, hepatitis, and a host of other blood born diseases are significantly higher risks than most other places. What if my blood had caused a reaction in the patient, despite screening it prior to transfusing it? I could go on, but you get the idea.

So why was my knee-jerk reaction to make the decisions I did? Why did I stick that kid? Why did I drop a pint of blood? What was I thinking?

My only defense is simply, I did what I thought was right.

It was a pretty good day and I'm not losing any sleep over it.