A Whole Lotta Juking Going On

Okay, for those of you that don't speak Liberian, "juking" refers to any poke, prod, shot, injection, incision, etc. Last week was full of all kinds of juking from the doctor. In fact, Diamond is sure that is all doctors do. We told Diamond last night that he wouldn't need to go to the doctor's office for his fever since Daddy could just check him out here. He replied, "Daddy's not a doctor, he doesn't juke anyone." Uh, yeah, he does. Brian responded, "I do sometimes, and today I got to help cut open someone's eyeball." Diamond, in sheer terror, shrieked, "Oh, NO, Daddy, that's not nice."

I guess it usually isn't nice being on the wrong side of the juking, but I have to say that it has been nice to have Brian's medical knowledge and abilities as of late. Otherwise, I think I would be setting up house in the pediatric clinic at the hospital!

Diamond had a herniated belly button and recently underwent surgery to correct it. They were really worried about how he would feel after his surgery. The anesthesiologist told me that he would be down and out of it the entire day. Okay, no where close. Diamond wore his Diego jammies and took his baby jaguar to comfort him. Lucky for me, Diego was on when he came out of surgery and then again when he came home. Unfortunately, after Diego ended, so did Diamond's patience with his infirmity. While I was cleaning the kitchen, I noticed a small, dark figure out of the corner of my eye. I turned to find Diamond hunched over, hobbling toward the garage. "Where do you think you're going?" I wanted to know. "I'm going to ride my bike," Diamond whimpers. Umm, no, you're not. I did, however, allow Florence to push him around in the stroller outside, as long as he didn't try to walk/run anywhere. When I came back out ten minutes later to check on him, he was hobble running toward the play house. I said, "Diamond, honey, you can't run anywhere." He turned to Florence, who is half his size, and said, "Florence will you carry me over there?" So, needless to say, Diamond recovered very quickly!

The following week, Oakley and Chloe exhibited large abcesses like the ones I thought came from spider bites. Chloe had three in a row on the same butt cheek. Diamond had huge abcesses all over his head and his glands at the base of his skull were swollen huge. He looked like his head was nobby and deformed and he was oozing pus and blood everywhere. Turns out all of the children were suffering from MRSA--antibiotic resistent staph infection. It was a mild case because it did respond to antibiotics. All of them had to have their sores drained and cleaned. Diamond had to get a shot and Chloe had to receive an intravenous antiobiotic at the hospital. We then had to wash all bedding, towels, pillows, etc in hot water. Clean surfaces of the house with disinfectants and give the children bleach baths for two weeks. So far no one else has been infected, knock on wood, but it sounds like it is becoming epidemic around the country. So, watch out for giant pustules on your children's bodies!