This is how I remember Anicette. She spent most of the year with us in Benin, bouncing around between the ward and the hospitality centre, trying to find the magic formula that would let her gain enough weight for surgery. It worked. By the time she finally went to the operating room to fix her cleft lip, Anicette was a plump little baby, well-loved by her mama and every single nurse who laid eyes on her.I was sitting in the office yesterday afternoon when our phlebotomist, Maggie, came looking for me. Can you help me draw blood on a tiny baby? I followed her willingly, always happy to do some clinical work in the middle of an admin day. When I opened the door, I saw one of our translators leaning over a crying baby wrapped in a piece of cloth. Only it wasn't a baby. It was a little girl, just a few months younger than my niece.
Anicette.
At fourteen months old, Ani is so underweight that she doesn't even register on the growth charts. Her skin is hanging off her bones, her cheeks just a shadow of their former plumpness. We don't know why. We can't figure out if it's because she hasn't been fed or if she's just not tolerating the food she's getting. We don't know what it is, but it's obvious that something is badly, badly wrong.
So we prayed and bundled her tight and I stuck a needle into a spidery little vein in her head, the only place I could find on her tiny, dehydrated body to get blood. She cried the entire time, weak little sobs that broke my heart. When it was all over, I picked her up, held her close and told her I was sorry.
I walked her back to her mama, unable to stop the tears from spilling down my cheeks. Because it shouldn't be like this. No child should be starving to death. No one should have to travel to another country just to find someone to help.
Please pray for baby Ani. She's here now, tucked into the corner of A Ward, the best place for her to be. But it breaks my heart to see her like this, to know that it might happen all over again when we leave.
Please pray.
