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The Fight For Life

      Some days are harder than others. Some days are full of patients that are here for routine operations such as having their gallbladder removed or come in for stitches in their cut finger. These are the good days, when we can laugh with the patient and make lighthearted conversation. And then there are hard days, when it seems like every patient is very ill and needing a lot of attention. Those days can bring lots of talks with patients about death, the life thereafter, and sweet discussions about God. Sometimes these patients are children such as baby Isaac who was brought in from our Children's home due to severe respiratory distress just yesterday. We thought for sure that he was going to die. We fought to give him his every breath. If he stopped breathing, he was going to die as we do not have a ventilator small enough to support his tiny lungs. It's so hard to watch a baby struggle. His tiny chest collapsing with every breath. With a lot of IV fluids and some dextrose for his low blood sugar and a whole crowd of doctors and nurses around him, he seemed to stabilize although his fragile lungs are even still requiring a lot of oxygen.  He remains critical but is very slowly improving.
     As I was writing this, a code blue was called over the radio. Someone was brought into the hospital in cardiac arrest. We did everything we could but he didn't make it. Pray for his dear family and for us. 

This is a recent Facebook post by my  dear roommate Lizzie, who is also a nurse here, that I really wanted to share with you all.

These are the easier pictures to post--the ones of sunshine, soft sand, green leaves, and a sky & ocean of an impossible blue. Mostly because pictures aren't taken when we keep a baby breathing who is having seizures. Or when we talk a scared 13 year old through what to expect in the next few hours as she delivers her first baby. Or when we pray with our patient after her miscarriage. Or hold a sobbing mother as we prepare her lifeless 5 month old baby girl for her to hold for the last time. Those are the hard memories. 
So we post the easy ones. The scenic ones. The ones with kiddos and smiles.
We try (and sometimes fail to) practice gratitude.
And we cherish community.
And rest.
And your prayers.
And encouragement.
And laughter.
And we snap a picture of the sweet moment for Instagram or just to remember it later as we wait by our radio to be called in for the next hard memory.
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Location: Balfate, Honduras

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