This morning I learnt of the passing of the son of a staff member of ours whom we have had for years. This little man was only 4 yrs old. His father has pictures of him on his phone/facebook showing a wide grinned little boy with a spark in his eye. Someone you can just hear people in the village say "o le ulavale ia" referring mostly to his overabundance of energy and knack for life.
2 weeks ago, our staff member brought this little man to me with his wife. It only took a first glance to see that he was pretty sick, looking very thin, gaunt and breathing very rapidly. He was admitted to hospital that day and after a prolonged admission finally was deemed better enough by the drs there at the time to go home. In that time, we had discovered that the little guy had acquired an illness that had caused his heart to swell significantly. I had done a bedside scan on him trying to find answers to our questions and could tell right away that his condition was quite bad. I refrained from leaping straight into giving him a terrible prognosis as I don't feel I have enough experience to know with his illness, whether he was past the point of no return or whether there was a chance things could be improved. When it comes to kids, my heart is fragile and I only ever want to give good news. The bad news is so enormous when its a little person who hasn't had the chance at life. Actually I think Im like this with all my patients. Just never rushed to give bad news unless Im sure we have exhausted all possible help, drugs, meds, investigations, expertise. In this little guys case. His heart was very sick. Meanwhile, we don't have a heart dr to consult on at the hospital, and in particular a paeds heart dr was who we really needed help from (or childrens heart dr) so everything was going to be a 3 step process of trying to contact overseas specialist, send them reports/images and await a reply.
We did this. But the replies were not good. My heart always sinks when I get a reply which starts with. "this is very sad" because I feel like this summarises the whole outlook right there. What I didn't expect though was that this kid would go so soon. I had thought he would have more time, at least a year or two of back and forthing to the mainland , to see visiting specialists, even if he were deemed unfit for surgery I thought there would be a palliative pathway he would go down. But no. Literally within 2 weeks of his illness coming to light, his heart gave out and he has taken his last sleep. Im not sure if this was better or worse. I think either way is pretty sad but perhaps more time ?although always the question of quality of life :(
His father rang me to tell me he couldn't work this morning . I asked first if they were being transferred to the main hospital in Upolu for his sons treatments - knowing he was pretty sick? When he told me what had happened, I could hear him choking back tears in his breadth and so did I . I had to run away to the privacy of our bathroom to escape the morning rush of people in our house and have a little cry . Kids getting ready for school, sitter just arrived, manager from hotel coming to update tasks of the day, housekeeper from hotel wanting to know how to use her timecard...my heart is breaking just a little bit and I want you all to go away :(
I thought about this kid a lot today. What a gorgeous little man he was. How his parents loved him so. How much my kids mean to me. How terrible it is to see your children suffer. How parents are meant to cope with this. The fairness of it all. Our staff member came over later, and sat at the foot of our door. He looked like he did not have the strength to even breath. His eyes blood shot from obviously being up all night and for the river of tears he must of shed. His English is not very good, my samoan aint that flash either. The hubby is in Pago for a faa'lavelave. Where are his wise Samoan words when I need him. I'm no good at providing comfort or counselling in Samoan, and I doubt me doing it in English would be very good either. So I stumbled through some "I cant think of anything that will ease the pain you are going through now" (in my broken Samoan ) and some "be strong for your wife and kids, so you can get through the next two weeks" I didn't feel it was enough but all I could muster while trying not to be a ridiculous bag of tears.
Of all thing things in life I am grateful for. My childrens health is one of the most important . Despite all the challenges and hardships we face, that is the one hardship I am glad to not have. The pain of suffering and health issues. Today I will hug my kids a little harder and pray for this families pain.
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