Pinrang's Choice
Visiting team with parents of baby
Baby #1
These proud parents (between the two doctors) [above] are the parents of this beautiful baby [left]. The beautiful baby can’t be seen in the first picture because of the various-sized adults obscuring it and because it is attached to a breathing machine called a CPAP, which doesn’t make for great pictures. The second picture shows what the baby looks like off of the CPAP, which kind of proves that babies aren’t made to be connected to machines. I love this baby. I know this is silly thing for me to say because I don’t know it. It doesn’t know me. We just met. It is not mine. I have gained no permission. We have no history and thus probable dismal trajectory. But there it is: The truth. Anyone who challenges this sentiment might need a quick trip down memory lane when falling in love with strangers was commonplace, or leave the house right now to chase down one of life’s most peculiar wonders. You need it. We all do.
The pictures make me happy in their moments, which I guess is the point of most pictures. At the time, the other doctor and I had worked all day arguing about the baby as if we were the parents. The genetic parents weren’t there to say otherwise. They were outside of the unit waiting on the floor, where they had been for three days. They were on the floor because the hospital doesn’t provide chairs for waiting families; after three days the floor is more comfortable than real or fictitious chairs anyway; and hospital policy prohibits parents from entering the medical rooms while the doctors are schedule to be working. This to me is a very silly policy, which I have put on the list of battles to fight. Often when passing through the area, I imagine that it is I on the floor and I don’t like it one bit.
The other doctor and I were not arguing arguing—no viciousness or irrationality (at least none that this irrational person can think of). We were arguing in the best sense of the word: Playful but for a purpose. An opportunity to learn what the other person is saying and from the interplay of styles which sometimes can be generative. The dialogue went something like this:
“Do you think this baby has a chance?” the doctor asked.
“Hell yeah,” I said, “so long as we move to Pinrang.”
“I do like it here,” she said
“Yes, you are fitting right in with your black wool blanket for a shawl,” I said.
“It’s not a blanket and it’s not wool. Just be glad that you’re a man who doesn’t have to cover up.”
“If I had any doubt before about my chromosomal makeup, I don’t anymore. It’s really hot. A cool 95 degrees don’t you think?”
“Yes, sweat does tend to pour down one’s face when there is less hair to sponge.”
“Ouch.”
“Do I offend?”
“Not at all. I appreciate reminders of my mortality. Speaking of which, I think the doctor here is retarded.”
“That isn’t a very nice thing to say. Do you really so?”
“Do you think we can teach him to calculate how much this baby is to eat?”
“Yes, this is going to be difficult. It’s been three days and nutrition has not even been a part of our discussion. Sometimes, I wish you didn’t hire me.”
“Sometimes I wish you could do what you are hired to do.”
“Ouch.”
“I always mean what I say.”
Pinrang pediatric staff
This is the picture of the doctor about whom we spoke with possible delay. In fairness, he has been very welcoming to us. He is a pediatrician and responsible for the care of all 15,000 residents in the district, which might explain both his state of mind and why he is in a wheel chair. Actually, the reason the doctor is in a wheelchair is because he was hit by a car three months ago and it is still painful for him to walk. Having just met this pediatrician I don’t feel comfortable telling him that his foot stinks. I hope this doesn’t mean I am passive aggressive.
The expression of the doctor’s face looks like he was caught off guard when the photo was taken, but actually his expression is always like this. I think this makes the doctor look like a Cheshire cat. I think it is hard to be a Cheshire cat looking doctor for 15,000 residents. This probably explains the doctor’s general response time to sick patients— cadantly slow. He has to pace himself or he probably feels that he may figuratively die. The problem with this approach is that while the doctor works on self-preservation, babies have literal experiences. It just goes to show how too much time alone dulls your synapses to the point that they fray, misfire and even snap.
2 pound baby
This is another picture of a baby that makes me think that the job of the organization I work for isn't to train people to care but to hold people responsible for care. The baby weighs two pounds and lies two incubators away from baby #1. The baby had stopped breathing. We found this out because the nurse responsible for its care calmly rested her hands on our boleh (“white”) shoulders while we were talking shop as if she were blessing us from behind. She gestured with her head as we looked back at her to the incubator in the opposite direction where we noticed upon flipping the other way that there was now a gray mound of flesh instead of a pink one. That’s all she did. She didn’t speak or move to actually see if it was the baby who needed touching. She just rested her hand on our shoulders and nodded to the newly grayish fleshy thing.
BLS, ALS, NALS, PALS or whatever you call it works because we got the baby breathing again. The intervention actually wasn’t very technical. We just took the baby out of the incubator, positioned it, and listened to its heart rate which was 10 (regular is 160). Just the stimulation process got the baby breathing again. This often happens to very low birth weight babies. In a process called apnea they kind of just get preoccupied with stuff and forget to breathe. While the outcome was desirable, what was undesirable was that we two foreign doctors did the work. Not the purpose of this program at all. But the problem was that the doctor and nurses in the room weren't acting as if anything were out of the ordinary. The nurse gestured and the doctor just sat there and smiled. We asked them what they wanted do and they treated the conversation as an academic exercise. After 30 seconds of what would you do, I would do, then will you do, I can do, what?, we got impatient, rolled up our sweaty sleeves and just went after the bay by ourselves
Mother and child
