Our Cold Toddler, Faithful Prayer Warriors, and Healing God!
Eli must have picked something up when we were out in the bush this past week. The day we came home he started having diarrhea. Not bad...but noticeable. Saturday he spiked a pretty high fever (103), but was still drinking and eating. Saturday the temp came down a little and by Monday it was gone. But he was still acting cranky all day Monday, and was still fighting the diarrhea. Grant went to check on him at 1:00 (AM) Tuesday morning, and he was freezing. He was sweaty and his skin was cool and clammy. His eyes were sunken in, and his skin was pale white. We took his temp and it said 92.5. We couldn't believe that it could be that low. We took and re took it and tried the thermometer on us just to make sure it wasn't broken. We quickly wrapped him in blankets, gave him fluids, and put hot water bottles around him. We had no idea what was wrong, and just kept reading all kinds of terrible things about what it could mean.
We have never been to a hospital here, and we have only heard bad things. So we weren't excited about making a middle of the night trip out to one, but everything we were reading and hearing was that it was a life or death situation. My mom sent out an urgent prayer request to our prayer team. Before we were packed and ready to head out for the hospital, Eli was up and playing, drinking, and eating. His temp had already started returning to normal.
Fortunately, we found an open clinic...well, it opened for us. They called in a doctor (who showed up in PJs). The clinic is exactly how you would picture an African clinic to look like. It was bare, dirty, and the paint was chipping off the walls. The doctor barely inspected Eli when he saw that he was up and walking, and told us to bring him back for testing later in the morning. We did as he said, and brought Eli home to sleep for a while. As he went back to sleep (and stopped moving) his temp dropped again...but we kept him as warm as we could. 7:30 AM could not come quick enough.
We took him back to the clinic in the morning, after they had opened. The clinic was bustling with sick people. Three little children played naked in the waiting room, with swollen and infected genitals. Needless to say, Eli was not allowed to touch ANYTHING! They took some stool samples and blood and told us to return at 4PM for the results. Talk about a long day to have to wait! We were so nervous- taking his temperature every 15 minutes...not letting him sleep for long...forcing him to drink every few minutes!
By the time the results came, his temp seemed to have normalized. The results were a little confusing (or at least our understanding of them in Malagasy was!). He either has worms, parasites, or allergies. At least that's what the doctor says...he said it was no big deal. But he didn't see our little toddlers lifeless, cold body that morning!
We have been giving him a few different type of meds to try to kill anything bad in his body and he seems to be doing better each day. Today (Friday) his diarrhea has finally stopped!
Praise God for healing his little body and protecting him! Thank you to our pray team for taking the time and heart to pray for him. It is strange how things work out-maybe not strange-but God ordained! Almost every person in our prayer team is living in the US. If he would have been sick in the middle of the day our time, our prayer team wouldn't have gotten the email until the next day. But because the email was sent out at 2 AM our time, our prayer team was able to receive the email and pray for him right away! How awesome is our God-although, I have to admit that I wasn't excited about the 2AM part at the time!!
We have never been to a hospital here, and we have only heard bad things. So we weren't excited about making a middle of the night trip out to one, but everything we were reading and hearing was that it was a life or death situation. My mom sent out an urgent prayer request to our prayer team. Before we were packed and ready to head out for the hospital, Eli was up and playing, drinking, and eating. His temp had already started returning to normal.
Fortunately, we found an open clinic...well, it opened for us. They called in a doctor (who showed up in PJs). The clinic is exactly how you would picture an African clinic to look like. It was bare, dirty, and the paint was chipping off the walls. The doctor barely inspected Eli when he saw that he was up and walking, and told us to bring him back for testing later in the morning. We did as he said, and brought Eli home to sleep for a while. As he went back to sleep (and stopped moving) his temp dropped again...but we kept him as warm as we could. 7:30 AM could not come quick enough.
We took him back to the clinic in the morning, after they had opened. The clinic was bustling with sick people. Three little children played naked in the waiting room, with swollen and infected genitals. Needless to say, Eli was not allowed to touch ANYTHING! They took some stool samples and blood and told us to return at 4PM for the results. Talk about a long day to have to wait! We were so nervous- taking his temperature every 15 minutes...not letting him sleep for long...forcing him to drink every few minutes!
By the time the results came, his temp seemed to have normalized. The results were a little confusing (or at least our understanding of them in Malagasy was!). He either has worms, parasites, or allergies. At least that's what the doctor says...he said it was no big deal. But he didn't see our little toddlers lifeless, cold body that morning!
We have been giving him a few different type of meds to try to kill anything bad in his body and he seems to be doing better each day. Today (Friday) his diarrhea has finally stopped!
Praise God for healing his little body and protecting him! Thank you to our pray team for taking the time and heart to pray for him. It is strange how things work out-maybe not strange-but God ordained! Almost every person in our prayer team is living in the US. If he would have been sick in the middle of the day our time, our prayer team wouldn't have gotten the email until the next day. But because the email was sent out at 2 AM our time, our prayer team was able to receive the email and pray for him right away! How awesome is our God-although, I have to admit that I wasn't excited about the 2AM part at the time!!
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