This Time Its Cole Part III

Day 7 Friday March 23

After surgery, Cole had an uneventful night, and I was able to get some sleep.  He awoke the next morning happy and was making jokes.  Things were on the upswing, and therefore I finally had an appetite.  By this time Erin and the family had settled into a guesthouse about 20 minutes from the hospital, and they came over for a visit.  We enjoyed the Kenyan sunshine outside, with Cole in a wheelchair. 

Cole the morning after his second surgery.

Day 8 Saturday March 24

Like sailors caught in a storm, extreme highs and lows make you want to puke and cry out to God for mercy.  Friday was such a good day and I went to bed optimistic.  However, Cole woke up on Saturday feeling blah.  He didn’t have a temperature but he wasn’t hungry.  If anyone knows Cole, if he isn’t hungry something is wrong.  I knew he was going to have a rough day so I immediately became nervous.  Just when I thought things were under control, the roller coaster that is our trip crested a hill and started downward.  Cole wasn’t hungry…and therefore neither was I.  Erin and the kids came up to see him for about an hour before they headed off to a more comfortable place to stay for the next week or so (we hope its only that).  Our friends Kevin and Danielle Foster offered to host the crew, as a guesthouse can get cramped after 2 days. During Erin’s visit Cole was exhausted and just wanted to sleep.

Throughout the morning and early afternoon, his temperature slowly climbed to 39.3, the highest it has been.  He was hot.  He went for a second washout of his leg infection at 4:30, and thankfully his temperature had started coming down, to 38.1. 

Throughout the day my anxiety level was rising.  Why this high fever?  I thought we had him on the correct antibiotics…the one I advocated for.  Now I had to advocate again for a stronger antibiotic, vancomycin.  The doctor/Dad in me didn’t have a good history of calmly interacting with the doctors.  I had become the annoying family member that I always dread interacting with on rounds.  So many questions, and what if’s, and needs.  I realized I needed another ally by my side to help and calm my anxiety. 

I had thumbed through the Psalms that day, looking for encouraging words.  I came upon Psalm 62.  It reminded me that God was my rock, my fortress and that I could find rest in him.  It wasn’t working.  I really had to cry out that I can’t do anything else, that He has to work.  God took me to my edge and made me step off… to trust that He would provide me a way forward.   

Mike Ganey had come to stay with me through the first surgery but he traveled home the next day.  I was anticipating waiting by myself during surgery, deep in thought about how I would advocate for the antibiotics I thought should be started.  I didn’t want to be alone, but new it was inevitable.  However, 30 minutes before surgery, God came through with a HUGE answer to prayer.  I took a step off the cliff, and He carried me to the other side.  The absolute BEST doctor in all of Kenya, and our former next-door neighbor, walked through Cole’s door.  Matilda Ongondi, a Kenyan Tenwek alumni, fellowship trained hematologist, and all around wonderful person was the perfect answer to my prayers.  God orchestrated her presence…not me.   I thought she was still in Australia doing her fellowship, so I never contacted her.  Three days ago Mike Davis had notified her of our situation but she didn’t have time to come until this very moment.  I went over, gave her a hug and started crying.  Just when my anxieties were peaking, and I needed a Kenyan colleague to help navigate the medical system, God sent an angel. 

Dr. Matilda, an answer to my prayer that day.

Cole was nervous about the surgery, even though he knew what to expect.  I think that his fever exacerbated his anxiety.  I can tell when he doesn’t feel well because he gets teary when stressful things come his way…like blood draws, needing to go to the bathroom, IV infusions etc.  I told him that I was proud of him and that he was being tough.  He wished that I could come back into the OR with him, but I reminded him that I was now his Dad, and Dad’s weren’t allowed back.  I told him to look around and remember as many details as he could… so that he can have a good idea of what my place of work looks like. 

Surgery went well and the doctor said his leg looked clean with no pus.  They put a V.A.C. (fancy vacuum dressing I was impressed they had) on it, with plans to change it in three days.

Matilda and I sat and chatted during Cole’s case, catching up on the past 4 years since we last saw each other at Tenwek.  She now works at the large public referral hospital in Nairobi, Kenyatta National Hospital.  It is her mission hospital.  The sickest of the poor people get referred there, if they don’t die first in the district hospitals.  She read Psalm 107 to me, and reminded me that when I am weak, He is strong.  God loves us and will take care of us.  Cry out to the Lord and he will deliver you from your distress.   My anxieties calmed.  God spoke to me.  Then, out of nowhere, this elderly lady came up and introduced herself, saying that she gets in trouble by her family for talking to everyone.  After showing us the coin that was just removed from her grandson’s esophagus, she began preaching the SAME message that Matilda had just told me.  I had this eerie thought that she was an angel who came to deliver God’s message to me (like in the movies when the homeless disheveled lady speaks some truth into the main characters life, and then disappears).  She wasn’t disheveled, and she didn’t disappear, she just let her light shine and I happened to be in the path. 

Day 9  Sunday March 25.

Day 9?  I feels just like yesterday that this all started.  A whirlwind for sure.  Today, the hard part begins... waiting.  The cultures from Cole’s leg came back with results today.  The verdict is out.  Cole is more American than he is Burundian.  He grew Staphylococcus aureus that was resistance to a few penicillin type antibiotics.  Burundian’s don’t have drug resistant bacteria, American’s do.  It all made perfect sense now.  Cole didn’t get better after his first surgery because he didn’t have the right antibiotics.  We drained the pus, but he was resistant to the drugs needed to sterilize his blood and bone marrow.  He rallied after the dose of expired Vancomycin we gave him the morning of the evacuation. Vancomycin was the antibiotic Cole needed all along.  (Upon admission I did bring this up with both the ortho doctor and the ID doctor.  They wanted to treat him like a Kenyan/Burundian first and if he failed standard penicillin, then they would treat him with the Vancomycin.)

So now Cole has no obvious pus around his bone and muscle, and he is on the correct antibiotic.  It becomes a waiting game.  God will now give Erin and I a lesson in patience and trusting Him for the next one step forward.  The light on the path will illuminate only a few feet in front of us instead of several yards or miles.  If anyone knows Erin and I, this is hard for us.  We must wait day by day to see how Cole’s fevers trend.  Will they go down and then go away?  Or will they spike back up again?  Only time will tell.

So, hopefully no more drama for social media in the next week or so, just simple posts about fevers and when we will make the decision to come home.  Pray for us to have wisdom with this decision.  Pray for our stamina and sanity…as I live in a hospital room with Cole, and Erin lives an hour away with four tired kids who have been yanked all around East Africa.  Pray prayers of thanks for the body of Christ and how it can rise to the occasion. 

God Bless,

Eric