Chapter 9: Nomsa is still at the hospital.

I really can’t believe that I am writing this blog today, only 24-hours after I told you that Nomsa was coming home.  Brooke and I went to pick her up today and things went very badly.

When I arrived she was all packed up.  I brought her a suitcase that was large enough to put all of her small bags in. She had already given away the food that  I had brought her to help improve her health (peanut butter,  cereal, milk, peanuts etc) to the mother of Baby Rahab, trying to encourage her to eat and live. 

We took all her things to the car, she said her goodbyes to her friends. They all walked her down and gave hugs and kisses with promises of a visit soon. All we needed were the pills that she would continue to take to finish her treatment to insure that she didn’t “drop out” of the program again, as she had several times since she started her TB treatment in September 2011.

The nurse came out with bags of medication and many vials of what she would need to inject each day in to her hip.  That is when the red flag went up.  Injections were only given to patients who were still infectious.  When I asked the question the nurse confirmed that she still needed them and someone would have to go to her isolation room each day to give her the injection and pills.

STOP!

What did she mean isolation room?  Infectious?  Nomsa was moving to our Farm Manager Building where the rooms are open to each other above the wall. 

I asked the nurse how she could have been discharged under these conditions and she took us to the nursing room and showed me the papers.  They said, “Discharged at the patient’s request”.  Oh, Nomsa. 

Three hours later we had met with nurses and the Senior Doctor himself to find out what the situation was and how it was that they were discharging her.  In summary, Nomsa really wanted to leave the hospital (and who can blame her).  She pushed and pushed (I understand that) and finally convinced them that she could continue her treatment at home.  They went to her file and called her brother (next of kin contact) and asked if she had an isolation room to go to at home. He said yes.  They asked if she was welcome to go home.  He said yes.  They discharged her, with hesitation, but they agreed.  What they didn't know what that there is no one at that homestead (which is why she is welcome to stay there in isolation – it is empty).  There is no way to get food, medical treatment or support.  But most importantly, that is not where she was planning on going. 

I believe what happened is that she convinced them she had a place to go, they didn’t ask where (why would they – they would assume “home”) and they got enough confirmation to agree.

It was devastating.  And there is more.  She still needs to wait to get a “NEGATIVE” Culture in order to be discharged (another month of waiting), but they are concerned that because of her past drop outs and behavior and positive tests that she will be XDR-TB positive, which is the last stage and worst of Tuberculosis.  We pray that this is not the case.

She sobbed and sobbed and demanded to go home.  She said she would run away, which is a death sentence in and of itself.

The nurses were wonderful and spent a long time counciling her, encouraging her and trying to get her to understand.  Finally, I went down to the car and brought all her things back up to her bed.  Unpacked her, put the photos back on the wall and then found her crying on the staircase. 

Please pray with me for her desire to continue to live, her obedience to stay in the hospital until her test comes back, and her assurance that God has a plan for her life.

I came back home and slept for two hours, absolutely emotionally exhausted.   Now that I am up again, I am reminded that His plans are not our plans and while I desperately want her out of that hospital because I would feel better about it, I must want her to be there if that is still a part of His master plan.

Thanks for reading and praying with us.

Janine

Chapter 8: Nomsa is being DISCHARGED from the hospital tomorrow!

Nomsa's twins Leah and Rachel.

Today I am filled with joy and thanksgiving.  I got an SMS message (text message) from Nomsa asking me to call her.  It took me a while as Ian and I were in an all day attempt to get our Drivers Licenses renewed, so I didn’t call her right away. Five minutes later I got another message to call her so I feared the worst.  When she answered the phone I could hear joy in her voice and she almost screamed at me, “Janine, they have just discharged me from the hospital!”

What??  Only two weeks ago they told her that her Culture had come back positive, not for Tuberculosis, but for another lung infection that she had picked up at the hospital.  They said it should be cleared up in a month, but already they have test results back which show that she is no longer infected with Multi-drug Resistant Tuberculosis OR the other new infection. She is ready to leave the hospital.

Wow.  I am in awe.  Our prayers have been answered and just yesterday we started clearing the land for the Sicalo Lesisha Kibbutz where Nomsa will be able to live, work and grown in safety. 

I had to tell Nomsa that I couldn’t go and pick her up today, but would come tomorrow. I expected to hear her disappointment, but instead she said, “That’s okay Janine. I sill have work to do here.  The woman who is the mother of Baby Rahab is refusing to take Anti-Retro Viral medication so I will spend time today trying to convince her that she must take it to live.”

I told Nomsa that Baby Rahab (who is now living a the El Roi Baby Home) is HIV negative and Tuberculosis free so her mother has a good reason to take her medication and live. Nomsa has a mission for the next day and I pray that she will succeed.

Future site of the Sicalo Lesisha Kibbutz.

No one can predict the future and I don't know how it will go for Nomsa, but I do believe that she is mentally, physically and spiritually ready for a fresh start.  “Sicalo Lesisha” means “New Beginning” in siSwati and that is what she will get. Nomsa will move in to the Farm Managers Building on Project Canaan temporarily and will live there until the Kibbutz is built.  She will work on the farm (likely at the Khutsala Artisans Shop) and be a part of starting the jewelry making/sewing/crafts team.  She will remain on TB medication for months, but we can help manage that here at the El Rofi Medical Clinic, which should be open in June.  El Rofi is the Hebrew name for the “God who heals”.  I believe that Nomsa has been healed and has been given another chance.

Tomorrow she will come to Project Canaan for the first time and she will see her babies, Rachel and Leah for the first time in months. I have tears of joy just thinking of that reunion. I will take a photo and post it in this blog after she has been with them.   They will not go and live with her until she is fully healthy, stable and ready to take them.  That may be a year or two down the road, but these two babies will not be orphans.  What a great beginning to a new chapter.

From now on, this blog really will be Wednesdays WITH Nomsa.  Thanks Beth Blaisdell for pointing that out J.

Doing the happy dance in Swaziland.

Janine

PS – the sign on the door as you leave the hospital says, “Thank you for visiting me. Please come again”.  Nomsa and I will surely be back to visit others.

Chapter 7: Bad news, then some good news arrived.

 

I received an urgent call from Nomsa last Friday.   She said that the nurse came by and told her that her results CULTURE test were back and she wanted to discuss them with us.  Nomsa asked me to call her so that the nurse could explain the results to both of us.

I was in South Africa at the time and did not have a good cell line, but what I did hear clearly was that Nomsa’s culture came back POSITIVE, not NEGATIVE as we were praying for.  Not only that, the positive test showed a NEW lung infection called MOWT.  It wasn’t there last time she was tested, but now she had another infection! I could hear Nomsa crying in the background while the nurse gave us both the news.  We had both been praying that she would be leaving the hospital on the following Monday and that she would be moving to Project Canaan.  But no, she would be staying at the hospital for another 6-8+ months.

We were driving through McDonalds at the time and I just wept.  I know that God’s plans are better than our plans, and I instinctively knew that He was not finished with her at the TB hospital yet.  There was more for her to do, but I still cried for her.

I asked the nurse to keep a close eye on her over the weekend so that she didn’t harm herself and then I tried to calm her down as she sobbed on the other end of the phone.   We spoke several times over the next two days, and on Sunday morning after picking up Lori Marschall at the airport, we headed to visit Nomsa.

I told Nomsa on the phone that we would still celebrate her life together on Sunday and so we arrived with lollipops and fresh avacados for everyone in Nomsa’s ward along with fried chicken for Nomsa. 

We moved outside so that she could meet some of my friends (I only had 3 masks with me), but outside we can sit 3 feet away from each other.  She was so funny.  She made us all laugh with her approach to life, and then cry when she shared about the day that we met and she handed her newborn twins to a stranger. 

As we were chatting Nomsa’s nurse came out to meet me in person.  She said she wanted to better explain what the results meant. Then she dropped the real news… the GOOD NEWS!  Nomsa’s CULTURE actually came back NEGATIVE for Tuberculosis (which is what we were praying for), but POSTIVE for the MOWT.  What does that mean?  It means that she is no longer infectious with her Tuberculosis and that they were now treating her for MOWT, which should be cleared up within a month.  The nurse confirmed that she would have contracted MOWT in the hospital (good reason to get out!) and that they will run a CULTURE test again in a month and we await the result. 

I went back over to the area where my friends were sitting and shared the awesome news.  I am not sure there was a dry eye and while the news wasn’t all good news, it was much better than we thought it was! 

When we finished our visit and took Nomsa back upstairs to her ward to say goodbye she brought us over to a new patient who had arrived the day before.  She was very very sick (if she was admitted there it means she has HIV/AIDS and Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis) and Nomsa told me that the woman gave birth a few weeks ago and the baby was in the hospital.  The woman had kind eyes and tried to smile, but then asked me if I could check on her baby.  I asked where the baby was and she told me.  That day (a Sunday) I was able to find the doctor who is caring for that baby to see how she is doing (yes, she is a girl).  I was told that they are waiting to see if the baby also has Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis, then she was going to call me.  The very next day I spoke with the Social Welfare Officer who was letting me know about that baby. Today I received news that the baby is very very sick (vomiting, diarrhea, fever) and they are not hopeful.  But I am eternally hopeful that the baby will live and that maybe even the mother will live.  Stay tuned for more on this story.

Wouldn’t it be cool if Nomsa one day started to write this blog with her own stories of people in the hospital that she once was a patient in?  I am waiting expectantly for the next chapter of this story.

Janine

PS  - while I was speaking with the nurse my friends asked Nomsa if she knew how many people read this blog and how far reaching it is?  Her answer was simple, “I am here right now to support many other women that don’t have the support system that I have.” 

Thank YOU, the reader, for being that support system.

Chapter 6: My test results were lost!?

It has been four weeks since I was able to visit Nomsa.  When I saw last  her we were waiting for her TB Culture results to come back. If they were NEGATIVE she could leave the hospital. If they were POSITIVE she had to start the extensive treatment over again and was in the hospital for another 6+ months.  

Just after I left for the US we found out that her lab results had been lost.  Each culture takes six weeks to grow so they had to do another test and now we are waiting six more weeks for the results.  I know that everything is in His perfect timing and so I was anxious to hear how she was doing when I got home.

When I went to visit her I found her curled up asleep in her bed in the middle of the day.    She had been in bed for two days and was not strong emotionally.  The day before I visited her she had taken a double dose of her ARV’s accidently and was really sick, so tried to sleep it off.  Then this morning she told the nurse that she wanted to be discharged and leave the hospital.  The nurse reminded her that she can’t do that and that she must stay until she is well. It has been a long journey thus far, and it may be far from over.

So she got up, was happy to see me and started to unpack her “goodie” bags – roasted pork ribs, fragrant hand lotion a few PEOPLE magazines can sometimes bring light to a gloomy day.  Then I gave her a "Learn to Crochet" book and some yarn that my friend Becky sent for her.  We plan to her how to crochet so that she can be a part of the Khutsala Artisans Shop when she is discharged from the hospital.  After that I decided to show her some photos from my trip and we ended up looking at pictures from the first day we met at the back of the ambulance. It was an emotional time.  She never imagined that she would still be alive today, and honestly, neither did I.

Crocheting project from Becky Fern.

Nomsa had never seen a computer before. She was shocked at how small it was.  When I opened it my FaceBook page was there.  She had heard of FaceBook, but didn’t know what it was. Fortunately I had my “dongle” (cellular internet device) with me so I connected to the Internet, also new for Nomsa.  I was able to show her photos on my FaceBook page and then I took her to this blog site so she could see what people are looking at when they read Wednesdays With Nomsa. Each week I bring her a typed copy of what is written, but she hasn’t seen it in blog format.  To know that thousands of people knew who she was and were praying for her really started to sink in.

Nomsa looking at photos of her twins the day she gave them to us.

 Then I took her to the www.manna2go.com site where she watched a video of me telling a short version of HER STORY!  I hadn’t seen it myself so the two of us sat and wept.  To think that people around the world could hear about her, care about her, pray for her and even give financially to help build her a room while she stayed in bed and cried, was too much to imagine.  There were no words for her to express the emotion she was feeling so she just cried and shook her head.

Kayla Ferris putting out a challenge to help Nomsa.

 Then I decided to introduce her to skype.  By this time we were both getting excited.  She had never heard of Skype.  Suddenly there was Chloe inside the computer talking to us!  All the other women in the ward were standing behind her shaking their heads in sheer wonder.  Next, we Skyped my cousin Kim in Canada.  Imagine that?  These women who are suffering with HIV/AIDS and Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis were able to talk to someone in Canada through a little machine on a side table at a TB hospital.  It was an exciting day that is hard to put in to words (I realize as am trying to type this).  The world suddenly became much smaller and the room she was in became much bigger.  Hope appeared in the form of a computer.

Nomsa and Chloe Skyping.

When it was time to leave Nomsa walked me to the top of the stairs.  She looked and me and cupped her hands together in front of her the way you would scoop water or hold a tiny bird.  She said, “I feel like the Lord is holding me in the palm of His hands and that I am safe and secure.  Even though I am sick and have been alone for a long time, I am not alone anymore.  He loves me and I know that for sure. I am okay now Janine.  You can go and we will meet again. I am okay.”

Once again, Nomsa showed me the power of the human spirit and the importance of faith, hope and love … the greatest of these is love.   

Janine

PS – The woman in the photo has been asking for a bible in siSwati for many many weeks.  I have had a hard time finding one, but found one on Sunday in a random box in our house!  When I gave it to her she screamed, danced, shouted and sang praises of thanks for giving her the only thing that she really wanted … a bible.  It was the perfect end to a great visit.

Doing a happy dance when she got her siSwati bible.

Chapter 5: What are those girls doing?

Chloe reading Chapter 4 to Nomsa under the tree at the hospital.

Last week when I met with Nomsa she told me a story that made me physically nauseous.  I went home and told Ian about what she said and he was speechless, then he said, “What kind of a man would do that?”   I spent the week thinking and processing what Nomsa told me, and today when we met again I asked her to confirm her story. Then I asked her permission for me to share it with you, our reader.  Nomsa reads every word that I write and she has allowed me to tell very private stories of her life, but this one was different. I didn’t want to get her in trouble, on the off chance that someone she knows reads my blog.  She is a brave young woman and said, “YES!  Tell them. It is the truth!”  And so I will.

As we sat under the tree outside the hospital told me this story.

“Janine, you know, not everyone has family or friends who will come and visit them.  Many people here never get a visitor. I think people are scared to come and visit in case they too become infected.  The lucky people, like me, have a visitor who will come to encourage them, but also bring good food to eat. They feed us here, but we need more protein.  We need more food because of all the medication we take and because we are so sick.  Some of the girls don’t get extra food so they become more vulnerable to “predators”.”

I thought to myself, more vulnerable? These women are all in advanced stages of HIV/AIDS AND they have Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis AND they are in a remote hospital that no one wants to visit AND they are there for 8-24 months. Vulnerable to predators?

“Some of the men who are sick here will tell their friends on the outside that there are women here who need food.  Just the other day a man came with some fresh fruit and gave it to my friends. They disappeared for a while and then came back.  I wondered ‘what are those girls doing?’  Janine, they had sex with that man!  For fruit!

“Hey Janine, it happens a lot, but the girls don’t have much choice. They want to live.  The best price that is paid is KFC Chicken.  That one is the best I am told.  Can you believe it?  They have no hope.  They have lost all hope for their future and it makes me so sad.”

Nomsa shook her head and looked down to the ground.  While she could understand the desperation of young women, she really couldn’t get her head around how desperate they really were. And what about the men?  What kind of man would bring chicken or fruit to a patient who is dying of HIV/AIDS and highly infectious Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis to have sex with them? Really??  Stop for a moment and think about that one if you would.

I am thankful for Nomsa and her courage to speak the truth even when she doesn’t want to speak it and I don’t want to hear it.  I said goodbye to her today, as I won’t see her for the next month because of my upcoming trip to the US. Her tears brought tears to my eyes and we hugged and committed to pray for each other. Imagine?  She is praying for me as I travel back to the United States of America to share with people who have ears to hear what is really happening here in Swaziland. I will stay in nice accommodations, eat nice meals, ride in nice cars and laugh with friends and family.  Meanwhile Nomsa sits in a hospital alone, with people dying all around her and waits to get her most recent TB Culture test back.   If it is NEGATIVE she can leave the hospital when I get back at the end of April. If it is POSITIVE she starts back at the beginning of a two-year treatment for a disease that wants her dead.   

We are committed to praying for each other. I can’t honestly say that if I were in her shoes that I would pray for my friend who was going off to the “land of the free, home of the brave”.  I think I would be selfishly be praying for myself.   But that is what makes Nomsa different than anyone else I know. She cares about others.  She wants to change her future and she knows that it starts by her actions in the present. 

Nomsa inspires me and challenges me.  I look forward to being back in Swaziland at the end of April to see her again, and hopefully to bring her “home”.

Janine

Chapter 4: I want to leave the hospital.

I can’t imagine living in a hospital for many months for years.  It seems that I might die of depression long before a disease killed me.  Maybe that is true of many of the people who have died of MultiDrug-Resistant TB here in Swaziland. It was just too much and they gave up. Too much pain, too many pills, too many injections, too much death, too many side effects, too much loneliness and so they give up hope and die quickly thereafter. 

TB treatment typically lasts from eight months to two years here in Swaziland, but if you become Drug Resistant you have to start the treatment all over again.  You start back at DAY ONE, with new drugs to see if they can win the war against the disease that is trying to take your breath and life away.

Nomsa was diagnosed with TB in 2007 and has been in and out of hospitals since that time.  This last time she was admitted in December 2012 and her expected stay would be until as early as September 2013, but could be many months past that.  In January 2013 Nomsa was unable to walk down the stairs by herself and often found herself crawling to the toilets.  She was really really sick.  But in February she seemed to be getting better very fast. She was putting on weight, laughed more, ate better and could walk without assistance or wheezing.  In March we started talking about what she would do when she left the hospital.  I knew it was many months away, but it might give her hope to think about the possibilities.

I quickly realized that Nomsa had no possibilities other than life itself.  I asked her to tell me step by step what would happen when she was discharged from the hospital. At first she had no idea what I was talking about, but I asked her tot ell me what it “looked like”. I am a visual person, which helps me with my writing, so I wanted to know what she was seeing as her first steps when she left the hospital after she was no longer infectious.  Here is what she said:

“I will pack up my things in a plastic bag and walk to the front door.  The hospital will give me a ride home. They always give you a ride.  I am told that someone lost the key to my front door, but then it doesn’t matter because I think the door has lock has been broken for a long time. My home is a round building made of mud with a grass roof. The building has not been repaired in many years and it was really dirty when I visited last. A TB lady will come to my home every day to give me my injection until I don’t need that drug anymore – probably many months. I won’t be able to work until I get healthy again.”

I asked her how she would get food and she said, “I will go to my neighbors and ask them forsome food.  If I go with my bowl they will give me some if they have some.” 

I asked how long she thought she could do that and she wasn’t sure about the question or the answer. How could she plan? How could she know?  Why would she want to walk down that road in her mind, knowing that there was no job, no money, no one to provide any care for her, no way for her to get her children back with out any of the aforementioned things.  Why look to the future and think about it when there are no options. 

Nomsa represents thousand of young girls here in Swaziland who have the same problem.  Poverty eliminates options. With no options people lose hope.  When we lose hope we die, and sometimes we die a slow and horrific death because of the choices we make.

I like options and I like plans and so I tried to get her to dream.  Maybe this was not a fair or kind thing to do because how do you dream if you can’t think beyond how you will get your next meal. If you have no options, NONE, how do you “weigh your options”? The conversation didn’t get far so I tried a different tact.  I pulled out a map of Project Canaan and started to tell her about the farm and the agriculture and the vision for the future of the children and the women’s centers etc.  After I talked for a long time I asked her if there was anything there that she might like to do.  Again, it was a very unfair question.  Her answer was, “Yes, I would like to do anything!  Janine,I will do anything”. 

As we talked further I learned that she likes to cook. We both laughed when I told her that I like to cook too, but I don’t consider boiling dry maize in a large pot over burning wood to be “cooking”.  She would like to learn to cook. Maybe she would even be the cook at the Toddler Home one day. Imagine?  An idea?  A possibility? It is a dream that could very well come true, if only she could get healthy again.

This week is a week of waiting.  Minutes pass like hours. Hours pass like days.  We are waiting to get the results of Nomsa’s TB Culture that will tell us if she is still infectious or not.  If the test comes back NEGATIVE then she is no longer infectious and can potentially leave the hospital. If it is POSITIVE we have a whole different problem to face.  

If she is non-infectious my hope and prayer is that she will be able to come to Project Canaan and live here in temporary housing until we get the Sicala Lesisha Kibbutz for women built.  She can focus on regaining her strength and health while doing some work here.  Nomsa would still get an injection daily for her TB (given to her by our nurse on site) and that would continue until she gets a second NEGATIVE Culture. At that time she no longer gets an injection, but still takes her cocktail of pills for the balance of the two-year period.

If her test comes back POSITIVE and she is still infectious we must regroup.  Her last test came back positive, which was bad news because the drugs she was taking should have been effective in making her well. The POSITIVE result means that she has become resistant to more of the drugs she is taking and it is a very bad sign.  Sadly they donot have a way to know which drugs she is resistant to here in Swaziland.  The next step is that she goes back to DAY ONE and not only starts treatment all over again, but they “throw everything at her” as her Doctor said. They will give her every drug that they have to treat TB here in Swaziland.  It will mean two injections in her hip muscle each day, more pills added to the cocktail and more chance of side effects and the two year count down starts again.  She will have to stay in the hospital because the POSITIVE test also means that she is still infectious.  Our fingers are crossed and prayers being said that her test results are negative and that she can come home soon.

There is no doubt that Nomsa is very scared.  After our meeting with the Doctor she said, “I want to leave the hospital. I just want to go home.”

I can’t blame her. Living in the hospital with people going crazy and dying all around you is like living in hell.  But going home for her is certain death, and she is smart enough to know it.

“I was diagnosed with TB in 2007 and from then until now I have been in and out of hospitals and am still being treated for TB.  But I am happy that I am still alive, I can talk, I can hear, I can see and I can walk – isn’t that great?  And I am the mother of five healthy and beautiful people.  Isn’t that mercy from The One above?  God is great and He does not count our sins, but gives back life to those who are sorry for their sins.  Isaiah 57:15 says, ‘I live in a high and Holy place, but also live with people who are humble and sorry for their sins’.  I think that has been keeping me going since I was a young kid. I knew that God would forgive all my sins if I asked for forgiveness.”

Please join me in praying for Nomsa and all the other “Nomsa’s”who are suffering and feeling hopeless today.

Janine

Chapter 3: What does a young girl do when she is desperate and has no options?

From the age of 12 to 16 Nomsa moved from house to house, never feeling safe, never feeling loved.  She changed schools as often as she changed homesteads and was always wearing someone’s leftover school uniform from the last school she attended.  She was ostracized, laughed at and made fun of. Children all around the world can be so cruel.  After a long grueling period living alone with no food she found refuge in Manzini with her half-brother’s daughter.  Here is what she shared with me.

“My half-brother’s daughter was living with her friend in Manzini and neither of them worked, but they had beautiful clothes and shoes. They would always have food and new clothes and I was shocked and wondered where they get all that money from?  One day they took me out for breakfast and told me it was time to buy my own clothes and food and be a good looking lady.  Hey!  That next night they gave me some of their nice clothes to wear and took me out to the clubs in Manzini.  I was “recruited” and shown every trick in the book.  That night I became a “magician”.

“I met a guy who I think was a very good magician.  He was a soldier by profession and he impregnated me.  When I told him I was pregnant he gave me money and told me to get an abortion so that we could continue to enjoy ourselves freely. I told my friends and they agreed that I should get an abortion and said it was as easy as A-B-C, they had all done it before, not once, but several times.  I was really scared because I am from a family who knows God and I used to go to church and I knew very well that it was wrong and that God would not be happy.  I had already done so many things that I am ashamed of, and even though I was a sinner I decided NOT THIS TIME.  I decided that my only choice was to move back to my family homestead.  I didn’t know how to start life again, but at least I would sleep and wake up without anyone telling me to do more sins. I had had enough. Life was hard, but I had to make the right choice.

“Nine months later when it was time for me to give birth I went to the hospital, but I knew that had no money to pay the hospital bill after I gave birth. But they admitted me anyway because I was bleeding.  I had no labor pain, but the doctor told me I had to have a Cesarean Section, so they operated that morning and I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. I called his father, but he made it clear that he was not willing to talk to me or care for me, or the baby. The hospital keeps you for a week after having a Cesarean Section so I was there and I remember being in terrible pain and crawling to and from the toilet one day. I can’t really remember what happened after that but I remember sleeping on my bed and thinking I had been thrown in to an iceland without clothes.  Hey, I was sweating like I was doing roadwork!  They sent me for a scan and they saw blood clots so they operated to remove the clots and then closed me up again, but things got worse. They took me back for another operation, but by then I was very sick and thin, but the nurses were very kind and helped me with the baby when I was too weak to hold him. 

“After a long time I started to feel strong and was ready to leave the hospital, but the bill was R950 (approximately $110 US) and I didn’t have that kind of money, not even a penny so there was no way to leave the hospital.  They sent me to another room to sleep on the floor with another woman who couldn’t pay her bill.  We had to stay there until we paid, but the Lord touched my half-brother and after a month he came and paid my bill and I was allowed to leave.  It was really an unforgettable moment.  I went back home with my baby, but there was nothing to eat, no candles to light and I was too weak to walk to the dam and fetch water with my baby on my back.  Life was difficult for us and I didn’t know if we would live or die.  After almost one year passed my brother came back home and told me he was going to send my son to “his people” to be cared for and he promised to pay for me to go back to school.  He took my baby away, but then refused to pay my school fees so I couldn’t go back to school. 

“I was alone again and didn’t know what to do other than go and get my baby back.  When I arrived at that homestead I found that my son was living with an old woman whom my brother had promised to pay monthly for the child’s care, but he had not paid her and so she refused to give me my baby until she had been paid.   There was nothing I could do, but go and look for a job.  I found a job and began working, but I only got enough money to buy a little food, not enough to get my son.

“Janine, my son is now six years old and I know for sure that this old woman is not taking good care of him and she is destroying him.  She takes him to Shebeens (illicit bar or club where excisable alcoholic beverages were sold without a licence) and I know that she now has him drinking illegally brewed alcohol. Janine, I must get better and I must get out of this hospital so that I can go back and get my son away from this woman before she totally destroyed.” 

Nomsa has Multipledrug-Resistant Tuberculosis and has been in the hospital since early December 2012.  I am currently reading an excellent book called “Mountains Beyond Mountains” where Dr. Paul Farmer explains, “A person with active TB of the lungs harbors of millions of bacteria, enough to ensure that a small number will be mutants impervious to anti-TB drugs.  In a patient who gets only one antibiotic or inadequate doses of several, or who takes the medicines erratically or for too short a time, the drug-susceptible bacilli may die off while the drug-resistant mutants flourish.  The patient becomes a site of rapid bacterial evolution, with drugs supplying the selective pressure. In the gravest cases, patients end up infected with bacilli that cant’ be killed by the two most powerful drugs.  Medical science reserves a special name for tuberculosis of that sort – Multidrug-Resistant TB, MDR by abbreviation.  It is a scary disease, and a serious problem wherever it appears, but worst, of course, in the places with the fewest resources to deal with it.”

All that being said, I will tell you today that Nomsa is getting healed in front of my very eyes.  During my Wednesday visit we sat out under a tree in the shade for almost an hour and we laughed and we cried as she shared her life story with Chloe and me.  She is putting on weight, she is able to walk down the stairs without assistance and she walked 50 feet to the tree without resting.  This young woman makes me laugh and I love spending time with her.  One minute she is so determined, and then the next minute so very sad, but I know that God is at work in her heart and in her life as He is at work in mine.

I stand in faith with Nomsa that she will be healed and leave the hospital long before the expected 8-12 months (which would be August – December 2013).  We started talking about where she would go and what she would do and while she didn’t have many ideas for her future, she now is starting to dream of a life and a future filled with love, joy, happiness, peace and purpose.  I bring her books, magazines and newspapers to read to keep her mind sharp and focused, and while she does read them, she always tells me that she prefers reading her bible.  Each week she asks me very politely if I could bring a bible for this patient or a bible for that patient and I laugh. Of course I will bring them, they are in storage ready to be shared.  Last week when she handed the bibles out to the patients they all cheered and then started reading. It was late in the afternoon and at midnight they got in trouble from the night nurses for still having their lights on so they could read.  LOL.  She brings me joy and I am so thankful for her life.

Janine