So after this visit and a couple of other stops, we headed back to the ship for lunch. As I was pulling into the port, my translator saw a little girl who was just sitting at the entrance. She looked familiar so we stopped and found out it was one of our patients from last year named Grace. She's 13 but looks maybe 10. She got in the car and we asked what was she doing here. She told us she had walked from her house (a two hour walk, I'm guessing and through heavily congested streets) because she wanted to come on the ship. She'd been to the ship before a couple times last year to watch movies and have lunch. She didn't tell anyone at her house she was leaving.
We turned the car around and drove her home. Her granny and step-mom were furious. She had left early that morning to go buy some peanuts and just never came home. I can't imagine how worried they were - it's not like there is a process here to find missing children as far as I know. She was obviously in big trouble. I'm just thankful we went to the ship for lunch and saw her - we don't always do that. She would have had to walk back home.
Then we headed back to the ship for lunch (again) and while I was there, I got a message from my boss saying we were getting another patient. It was a little 1 1/2 year old girl with retinoblastoma (cancer of the eye) that was referred to us by another organization working here called The Next Right Thing. This organization connects sick kids in developing countries with medical care in countries like the U.S. The patient hadn't actually been seen on the ship but this organization was trying to find someone who would help care for her because there was nothing they could do since the cancer was too far advanced. So we called the phone number we had and talked to Habib. He said he would meet us and take us to the patient. He told us the location which happened to be right near where we have another little patient who is a 1 1/2 year old boy named Archie with retinoblastoma.
So we drove an hour to meet this man Habib. We picked him up at the junction and started to ask questions about this little girl and, after a few minutes of discussion, we discovered it wasn't a little girl at all but it was our little patient Archie. For whatever reason, the family had not told this other organization that Archie was under our care so they referred us a patient who was already a patient. This is a city of 1.5 million people and we only have 7 patients so I find the odds incredibly small that this would happen. Anyways, I'm glad there isn't another little patient out there!
We went to Archie's house and just made our visit a day earlier than planned. He is not doing well. He has a large tumor where his left eye would normally be. A week and a half ago, he could see out of his right eye and was out playing with other kids. He cried at our white skin and wouldn't let me hold him. Sometime last week, he lost his vision in his good eye and is no longer up playing. He let me get close to him and touch him because now he can't see my white skin. He is restless so we upped his pain meds and will revisit tomorrow to see how well that worked. His family is really sad so they could definitely use your prayers while they go through this horrible time.
One final update: we had planned on sending our patient Michael to Ghana this week to start his chemo treatments. But it may actually work out that he can receive the treatment here in Monrovia and about 1/10 the cost of sending him to Ghana. He would get to stay in his home and hopefully continue his college studies while in treatment. Please pray this would all work out for him!
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