I Am Pissed

In 2008, if you would have asked me what I was going to college for I would have said “To become a nurse”. That quickly changed after realizing that I really didn’t care to learn everything I needed to learn to get into the medical field; all I really liked to do was help people and more specifically, help children.

A few years down the road, I became a BLS Instructor for American Heart Association. I really just got the job to pay bills and to leave my other job I was just extremely tired of (plus, I was going to work with one of my best friends teaching classes, so it was really just an awesome deal for me). I became certified for free (which was such a blessing because there was no way I could afford $300 at the time for the classes). Every day, I would teach First Aid/CPR classes to anyone who needed certification, including college students that used to be me: young adults going to college to go into the medical field. The things I taught became so engrained in my head and I’m positive I could still teach without some video if I was asked.

I brought my first aid kit that I probably spent too much money on out on the Race with me fully confident if anything happened to me, I would have something to handle it. I have yet to use my first aid kit for me (except for maybe some insect bite relief cream) and yet I am already out of all my gauze, medical tapes, extra-large and large bandages and antibiotic creams.

Seeing a child sick or hurt breaks my heart. Seeing a child who is sick or hurt and stays that way just because they have no way of getting readily available medicines or medical supplies easily accessible in the States makes me pissed off.

In India there was a baby who I called, “Presh”, and she stole my heart from day one. She had a skin disease on top of her head but other than that she seemed perfectly normal to me. She laughed more than any other child there and she loved to be held, played with and she was my girl. Yet, in India, she was processed in the system as “special needs”. She lived her days lying in a bed all day with flies all over her body for most of the day. I would think to myself “If this girl just lived in the States, her life could be so completely different…”

Here in Thailand, I found out a few days ago that the boy that has been helping my team all day in the fields has gashes and wounds on his feet. When I asked about how long he has had them, I was told he has had them ever since we arrived in Thailand. I sat him down with my first aid kit in hand and examined the gashes; they were deep, they were bloody, they were extremely infected and green fungus was starting to grow in them. I wanted to vomit. But, I just started to clean them out and bandage them up and do my best with telling him to not touch the wounds. After I finished with his feet, he showed me a gash on his elbow. I cleaned out the one on his elbow and bandaged it up. I asked our translator today if the family here knew about the wounds. She said yes and they tried giving him medicine once but because he picks at the wounds, they never heal.

For the past two days, I cleaned out his wounds and put knew bandages on them twice a day and anytime I saw him, show him in some way that I’m so glad he hasn’t picked at his wounds. In two days his elbow is already 5 times better and on its way to scabbing over. After just putting on his second set of bandages today, 60% of the green fungus stuff is gone and his wounds are not nearly as infected.

I’m leaving tomorrow and I don’t have any medical supplies to leave for him.

As I’m sitting here writing this and just remembering how overjoyed I was when I found out his elbow was getting so much better made the ending to this blog a little different. Even as we speak, the Lord is reminding me of how much more He loves His child than I do. That it is ok to have a righteous anger for these children but to fully trust in Him because He is a righteous God. I am called to do what God has abled me to do when I’m with His children but to trust Him that He can take care of them way more than I can.