We had just left Sunday School when a girl was brought to our attention - she had a hole in the front of her calf, down to the bone. She had fell on a plough ten days before, and had gotten the wound checked out by a quack doctor at the market. It wasn't bleeding, and looked pretty well cleaned out to where a roll of pennies would have fit neatly in the hole, but it was oozing, and there were flies swarming on it. We promptly took her to the clinic, where the nurse took a look at it, with the rest of the staff gathered around to see the "exciting" new case.
As they were gathered around, I walked out to the patio for some fresh air where a woman was waiting with a little boy to be seen. I had seen her waiting when we came in, but hadn't really paid attention. I sat down by her, and she shifted the boy nervously in her arms. He was probably 3 years old, wrapped in a blanket, breathing shallow, raspy breaths. After we exchanged names and the woman relaxed a little bit, I touched the boy's forehead. I had never felt someone that feverish, and as the shock spread across my face, the woman uncovered one of his hands to show me it was a yellowish color.
I knew right away that this boy had a lot less time to spare than the girl who was being seen.
What happened after that was kind of a blur, and I think I tried to motion to someone to pay attention to the boy, but after some futile attempts, I gave up and prayed to God that they would get to him in time. What was I going to do? I couldn't speak their language. I had no power to persuade them that he needed to be treated. I had no insight into the way their culture worked. I stayed with the boy a little longer as they put antibiotic and some gauze in the girl's wound, and then went home to grab some things before church started.
I took a physiology exam today. I had goofed off a bit too much this weekend, and was not real serious about finally sitting down to study. I found out I got accepted to medical school last week, and had told someone in passing today that I was ready to coast through the remainder of this semester. My prayer before the exam started went something along the lines of "God, just help me not to fail this test. I don't care if I don't get an A, or even a B, just help me not to fail and I'll make up for it later."
I left the exam feeling pretty good - I had actually done surprisingly well, and was already planning the things I was going to do tonight that didn't involve studying. I obviously wasn't going to have to study as hard for that class. I almost regretted staying up as late as I did last night to study for it since it went so well.
We were walking past the clinic later that afternoon, coming back from a friend's house, when we heard the death wail. My stomach dropped - even after hearing it every few days from the house, I was still unnerved when I heard it. Diane and I paused, once again taking in for a moment the reality that we were standing in.
I had dinner with a good friend tonight who I hadn't seen in a few months. We settled in, got some milkshakes, and started catching up on each others' lives. We were talking about the future, and she was asking me if it ever scared me to think about the responsibility I will have when I am a doctor. I shrugged it off, told her it hasn't really hit me yet, that I'm still just getting through exams and lecture material.
"You can't fail a patient like you fail an exam, you know. That's a whole different story. Have you had an interaction with a patient yet where you have felt that responsibility?"
The memory came to me effortlessly. I started to tell the story about the boy I had seen in Chad, who had been forgotten among the fascination with the girl we had marched in to the clinic right past him. I recounted the responsibility, but also helplessness, that I felt as I realized that I wasn't going to be able to get someone to pay attention to him until the commotion had died down. I drifted back to that moment, sensing the feverish forehead on my hand again, hearing the breaths coming quick and raspy.
My friend was staring at me with concern. "Uh… yeah. Sorry for dropping that on you. A bit too intense, huh?" I nervously laughed it off and changed the subject. We kept on talking and laughing, but I couldn't shake this feeling that I had just sold something off at too cheap a price.
Diane and I were at a funeral a few days later of a little girl who had died of typhoid fever. They hadn't buried her yet, her hands and feet were yellow, her lifeless body still having the traces of the stress of the past few days of battling the illness. She had been at the vacation bible school we had held just a few days before, and the illness came too quick to treat. We lingered for a while, and I saw the woman who had been sitting with the boy the other day in the clinic. I asked how he was doing.
"He died that day," she replied.
It was the death wail that we had heard from the clinic after church.
What if, instead of studying for an exam to get by with a certain grade, I studied in order to understand the wonder and beauty in how God created His people? What if I want to understand the human body so that I can give even just an ounce of the healing that Jesus gave while he was here on earth? So that I can show children and their parents the love of Jesus not just by my words, but in excellence in what I do to care and advocate for them? What if I studied, knowing that by God's grace my diligence would not pay off just with a better GPA, but with fewer children waiting to receive the healthcare that won't make it to them in time? What if I never gave up on another child, finding the mountains in the way of getting them healthcare too foreboding for my God to handle? Father, forgive my complacency!
