Wisdom

We have a boy we are sponsoring named Wisdom.
He is 14 yrs old and we just found out a couple weeks ago that he too is HIV positive. This was hard news for him and he did not quite understand it all. Last Thursday we had to take him back to the clinic for a complete blood tests and function of kidney and liver and CD4 count. That was a very difficult doctor appointment.
The last time he had been there he had heard the news along with his mother. (He is a single orphan whose father died very suddenly years ago). She herself is HIV positive and looks very sick. She has not been on medication partly due to "religious beliefs". If you take medicine than you are not trusting God to heal you and your faith is small and weak.


Here he is a couple months ago with his new sweater.

And in the Sunday School class


So Fanny and I took him in and then told him the doctor was going to take blood from his arm. He was not at all willing.
He became very nervous and as we tried to explain to him I think he became more fearful and scared.
I kept talking with him trying to get him to understand why they needed to and then he agreed. So the dr put the arm band on and was getting ready to draw the blood. He pulled his arm away, buried his head in his hands and between his knees and started crying very hard. It was so sad and so hard.
I started rubbing his leg and telling him its ok to be scared, and prayed and asked him again to let them take the blood. He halfheartedly started to let them and then as the dr came with the needle he started pulling away at which point I got up and went over and held his face in my arms in a hug and held his other arm away. Tears were coming down I kept saying its ok, you are doing great Wisdom, its ok...its ok to cry, it does hurt...

I think it might have been un-zambian to be embracing him holding his face with the tears coming down trying to draw his attention away from the needle. But I just thougt he needs comfort and what would I do if this was my child and then tried to do the same.

We left the office and were driving home I stopped at the gas station and said I had to run in and get something. I came out with an ice cream bar for him and a couple others that were with us and gave it to him first and said, "You did a good job today".

Monday he was feeling bad and so we took him in to see the doctor again. He prescribed some medicine and said that he thought it was malaria. Tuesday evening he started having a very high temperature and we had planned to take him in this morning. He was vomiting through out the night and the mother said hallucinating as well.
I picked him and his mother and Fanny up at their house.

Their house is a very tiny concrete block house with no electricity. You walk into the small living room and sit on the concrete floor. There is one room to the right that the mom and older daughter stay in and then the room to the left that the 3 boys stay in. No bed or mattress just a blanket on the concrete floor.

I walked in to the very dark house and saw Wisdom laying his head on Fanny's lap. He looked so sick.
We went to the clinic but unfortunately our doctor (Dr. Singogo) was not there. They did a blood test and ruled out malaria and said there is some type of bacterial infection. I asked for a meningitis test to be done.
Just this past week Enock's sister in law died. She was diagnosed as having malaria early on and it wasn't really malaria but meningitis, and by the time they realized that it was too late.
So this was fresh in my mind and when I heard some of his symptoms and know it is common here I wanted to make sure and get that tested. Tomorrow we should hear the results from that.

Unfortunately the doctor when he was talking to the boy's mother was quite rude. He started off by asking about whether the mom has been tested or not. I told him I wasn't sure but that he could ask her directly since she was right there sitting in front of him. To which he replied, "I don't speak their language!" I told him she speaks english. I later was explaining how we had been to another clinic earlier describing where it was located and asked if he knew. He shrugged and rudely stated, "I don't know anything about THEIR clinics". After the tests he said something, like so now do you believe me? I said about what and he referred to something earlier stated about the mom and I just replied I don't know, I wasn't there last night.
I was very offended at his manner of how he was treating Wisdom's mother and quite bluntly looking down upon her and assuming they knew nothing. Every time we have been there we have been treated well. It is more than a white skin black skin issue, but here it was a poverty/compound maybe even HIV issue and what they looked like on the outside.

He had to have blood taken again to get a complete count and check for malaria. He did great this time and didn't cry and I told him he was so brave! He is so afraid though and doesn't like going to any clinic now.

We definitely will not be going back to see this doctor though. I wanted to take him in because from what it was sounding like he was needing was to be on an IV to rehydrated him since I was told he didn't drink anything since monday. He certainly looked like he hadn't had anything. Though the mom too was not totally honest with us. Telling us that he had not had anything to eat or drink all day and then told the doctor that he had had porridge for breakfast and water to drink. As well as a few other "misstatements" which seem to be a pattern for her and her daughter. Also we have been told outright lies about big things and little things. Certainly makes it hard when you are just trying to get him better. The doctor said no he was ok and seemed to be fine hydration wise.

It was very frustrating as we just were trying to take a sick boy to the doctor to get better and both the doctor and the mother in their own ways were making it very difficult.

So please pray for him. We left the clinic with a bunch of medicine for him to take. We will be watching him carefully over the next few days. He looked very weak and sick when we left him with the medicine and Fanny was going to buy some extra food for them. Being HIV positive means he is susceptible to most any infection or sickness.