this boy/creature/tick/fool/kymbi is real

The past few days have been extremely trying and exhausting. They’ve also been blessed and eye-opening. Our house girl/friend (Betty)’s son Kymbi has been suffering from fibril convulsions – meaning that he convulses when his temperature gets to a certain level, which can come on quite abruptly. The only reliable doctor in town says he has 70% virus throughout his blood stream, which is incredible. This situation would be terrifying enough in America, but here in Uganda, this scenario takes on a whole new form.

Ugandan doctors have been telling Betty that Kymbi has malaria, like they tell everyone - it's like malaria is literally the only disease they know about. It’s so incredibly frustrating, especially when they don’t even test for malaria. They just pump people full of the meds for it. When Kymbi started having this second wave of convulsions (after over a month of none), we took him to Vithi Medical Center, which is Ugandan run. After a horrible experience of the doctors jabbing at Kymbi with needles trying to find a vain just so they could hook him up to a Glucose IV, which was not necessary at all, and after them openly admitting that they didn’t know what they were doing, we decided to take him to Dr. Debbie, an Australian doctor whose office is near the Children’s Hospital here in Jinja. She’s the one who told us about he viral infection and told us what to do about it – namely, we can’t do much but let his immune system take care of it, and pray…a lot.

What makes matters more difficult is that Betty is having such a hard time trusting anyone. Her father is telling her to go to the Ugandan doctors, we’re telling her otherwise, and she just doesn’t know what to do. She is impressionable as it is, and basically listens to whatever some one tells her, even if she disagrees.

For me, I want the best for Kymbi and so forced Dr. Debbie upon Betty. But I can’t help but think about how many Ugandans have unreliable information about their sick child or loved one. It makes me feel incredibly blessed to have access to good medical care back home. But still, what about the people here?

As I sat in line with Betty at the Children’s Hospital (where she took Kymbi even though we told her not to!) waiting for some one to see us, there was a line of about 20 women and their babies. I thought of the wrong-headed information they would probably get, and how much they would suffer because of it.

There is so much more to it than this, and so much more that I feel, but I can’t quite articulate it. But please pray for us, for Kymbi and Betty, and for whatever else you happen to think about. Peace. - jt