What it’s all about…

Sometimes while stuck in all of the frustrations of trying to manage medical care in Latin American countries, it’s easy to lose motivation, and the hope of improving the system diminishes. I get so caught up in the work that sometimes I lose focus and wonder how I can possibly continue. It’s not that I forget why I do what I do, because I have to remind myself daily of that otherwise I would have thrown in the towel long ago. But it’s that I don’t have the daily interaction with the kids that I have grown to love. In regards to the nursing aspect of my job, the “patient” contact is next to none, which is one thing I really love about being a nurse.

Over the past week, I’ve been blessed with some beautiful moments with the children, and I just wanted to take the opportunity to share a couple of them with you. Because these moments are really what it is all about.

Last weekend one of the evening activities was held down near where all of the boys live. Some of the boys were playing soccer against another team from a nearby town. I had just arrived, and had only been talking to one of my friends for about 3 minutes, when a 10 year old boy came up his tio (“uncle” – what they call the caregivers in the homes) that was standing right next to us. He was at the point of tears, and told the tio that his ear hurt. The other 10 year old that he was with saw me and said, “Hey, there’s Annie. She’s a nurse! She can help.” So at that point I crouched down and asked Tomas what the problem was.

We walked up to the clinic together so I could take a look and get him something for the pain. He held my hand so tightly while pressing his ear to my side the entire walk up (about 10 minutes when walking with a child with short legs and in pain).

I checked him out and got him some medicine. At this point he was softly crying because he said it hurt so badly. I asked him if he wanted to sleep in the clinic so the nurses could take care of him during the night. His response was, “No. No, I want to sleep in my house because I just can’t sleep without my brother.” His twin brother, Jose, sleeps in a bed just next to him in the dorm of 20 some other young boys. I told him that if his ear was still hurting in the morning that he should go back up to the clinic to look at it again. He said, “Yes, but I’d really like it if my brother would accompany me tomorrow.”

By the time we were ready to leave, it was dark and had started pouring rain, so we detoured up to my room quickly to get a raincoat and flashlight. He again squeezed my hand and pressed his head against my side until we got to my room. I threw my raincoat on him (pretty huge on a 10 year old Honduran boy – but at least it kept nearly his entire body dry, down almost to his toes), and I threw a hoodie on myself, and off we went.

When we got back down to the activity, obviously the soccer game outside was cancelled due to the rain, but everybody went inside to watch the Honduras vs. Granada soccer game on the tv. I plopped myself on the floor, and a couple of “my boys” joined me – one on my lap, another one hanging on my shoulder. Just minutes later Jose (the brother of Tomas) came and threw his arms around me and gave me a kiss on the cheek and thanked me for taking care of his brother. Not too much later, Tomas came and sat with me. First thing he said was, “Tia Annie thank you so much for taking me to the clinic. I feel much better – my ear doesn’t hurt anymore. I really appreciate you taking care of me”. Yes, he actually said “appreciate”. He as well gave me a big hug and kiss on the cheek. My heart almost melted. These boys are just too adorable. They love each other so much, and are just the sweetest things.

You know – it’s not like I did anything extraordinary for that boy. I guess it shows how special they feel when somebody takes the time to really care for them. I try to imagine myself as a child, without a parent to provide that attention for me. I can’t imagine being sick and not having a mom or dad to take care of me. These kids live in houses with maybe 2 caretakers for a group of 20 something other kids. One-on-one time unfortunately is a luxury that our kids don’t get too often.

We’ve got about 500 kids and young adults here that really need the one-on-one attention. They need somebody to relate to, somebody to truly care for them. Unfortunately with the resources we have, that’s just not possible in many cases.

We currently have 21 HIV positive children living in our home – all children that I got to know on a quite personal level in 2007 when I worked on developing a health care management program for them. Over the years, I’ve shared a lot of smiles and laughter with them, but have also shared tears and frustrations with them.

We just recently discovered that one of our older boys, a young teenager, had stopped taking his medications for about three weeks. One day I was walking past the internet café on the Ranch, and he called me in to talk to him. It was a pretty intense conversation – both of us had teary eyes at one point or another. A life and death conversation with a young teenager was nothing I was prepared for as I walked down the path en route to go wash my clothes. Those talks are never easy, but I thank God for allowing me to be a person they can come to when life just isn’t going right, and for giving me the strength to try to help them through rough times.

This job is by no means easy. However, I am so blessed to have a job that I love, where I can work towards improving the lives of children I truly care for. There are new challenges to be faced daily, but there are also beautiful moments to be shared, and it is those moments that give me the motivation to keep going. They are what this is really all about…