Brandina Brenda and her twin sister were born on 3 november 2014. Their mother was only 18 years old and mentally limited. The babies are born prematurely with 32 weeks. The father left the mother when she was 4 months pregnant. After the birth, I helped the grandmother to take care of the twins. Because the mother refused to breastfeed, I gave lactogen milk. Brenda did very well and arrived quickly, Brandina but did not and kept vomiting. After 6 weeks on the Kangaroo ward of the hospital, the family went home. But shortly after their dismissal came back to my grandmother house with Brandina, because she could not care for her. They now had to take care of two babies, her daughter watch, work on the land and do the housework. Brandina was constantly vomiting and crying what made the situation very difficult. I decided to include in the Brandina Africare house.
I experienced the same problems as the grandmother, The constant vomiting and crying. We're going to keep her weight in the eye and she came barely to. We visited a couple of times a pediatrician at the hospital Nkhoma and soon came the diagnosis: pyloric stenosis (a narrowing of the transition from stomach to colon).
Now they had to find a surgeon who could do this operation with a tiny baby. On February 22 February, there was a positive response from a surgeon at the hospital in Lilongwe Kamuzu. The next day we were expected at the children's ward and then Wednesday to undergo surgery. The Kamazu hospital is a state hospital, which means that resources are very limited. The children's emergency room is very small with only a few beds, but the number of patients is large. It is very difficult for the few nurses and doctors to keep a close eye on all patients as there is in each bed at least 5 children lie, many other children lying on the floor. Sleep, sit, eat, All this is done on the ground.
Brandina if the 6 hours before her surgery do not eat. The surgery was scheduled in the morning and we had a sleepless night. At 8 in the morning a nurse took us to the operating room and was told that the operation would take about an hour. So I waited outside, I waited, I waited. Eventually Brandina came three hours later in the operating room. During the operation Brandina did not appear to have pyloric stenosis but an intestinal obstruction. A small operation was a massive operation. The surgery had gone well but the next few hours were critical. In the afternoon we were back in the emergency department of the children's ward. In the space behind us were still around 100 children, but because of her critical condition Brandina got lucky a spot on a bed instead of on the floor. I held her for the next 24 hours closely watched. She could not eat and had a lot of pain. She has almost all 24 cried for hours. I tried to ask her some confidence by holding her in my arms. It seemed like the day and night lasted forever. The next morning at 9am pooped Brandina, which meant that the intestines again worked well. The doctor came to 10 morning and after doing some research she could drink some milk. I gave her a bottle and she finally fell asleep. I talked to the doctors off to go back to the hospital Nkhoma. At present she has a lot of pain and she can drink only small amounts of milk. But it is getting better with her and thank and worship God for it! Love, Nicole
