A small baby came to the Child Center this morning. He was 4 months old and only weighed 7 ½ pounds. The mother said that every time he nurses he vomits, not just a little spitting up from over filling, but large amounts of milk. Steve suspects he has a problem with the muscle that keeps the food in his stomach. This is not the first such case that we have seen; sometimes they have to have surgery to correct the problem. The mother said that she had been to both the hospital and the clinics but still the vomiting persists. Steve gave her the money to get the child’s health insurance and for the transportation to go to Tamale. We also told her to keep the child upright after he eats and showed her how to roll fabric to make a safe way for the child’s head and back to be supported when she lays him down. She was very excited about taking him to Tamale and possibly getting an answer to his problem. Even though he is small he is vigorous.
The ladies that work in the Child Center washed the soybeans and set the corn and soybeans out to dry in the sun. They will start roasting the grain tomorrow to make weaning mix. Zorash said that they ran out of weaning mix last week. We don’t want the malnourished children to go too long without the weaning mix.
It took us a few minutes to figure out what all the noise on the roof was this morning. Nazo was cleaning the leaves out of the gutters. He makes such a racket when he is cleaning the gutters. The gutters are the water collection system for the reservoir. If the gutters are plugged the first rain water will be lost because the gutters will overflow.
Mr. Iddrisu was late coming to work this morning. His mother lives with him and he said that she is now blind and can no longer walk. She can get around a little bit by crawling. He does not want to leave in the mornings until he makes sure that she has had a bath. She does not trust doctors or hospitals; she thinks that if she goes to the hospital she will die. Doctors come to Yendi hospital and do cataract surgery but she will not go. Her crawling is probably the result of her not being able to see.
The mother of the baby we sent to Nsawam to have the club foot repaired called today and the doctor said that they could repair the child’s arm that is also sort of clubbed but they would need more money and the mother would have to stay longer; a total of 3 months. They are going to try to straighten the arm with three sets of casts. Each cast will have to be worn for 2 or 3 weeks. We sent the money for the procedure through mobile money.
Have a great day!
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
