24 hours

Its been a tough 24 hours.

For the first 2 weeks after our shifting the Jeevan Sahara work to the new premises, we did not have a single in-patient.

Then this Monday we had our first inpatient. Leelamma.

On Tuesday our second patient came. Nelson.

He is one of our contacts in the home-based care team. Nelson is a very complex man. A long-term alcoholic - he has suffered a stroke which has left him paralysed on one half of his body. He has lost the power of speech and communicates through grunts. It is hell at home. He continues to drink and flails around - beating his wife and mother. His mother, a tiny waif of a woman has been supporting him so far. His wife comes and goes.

We admitted Nelson in one of the rooms.

Yesterday we found out a terrible fact. His good leg is blue. It looks like a clot has moved down into his leg and is cutting off the blood supply. An emergency surgery could help - but Nelson's wild and erratic behaviour means that an post-op care is almost impossible. We talked to his wife and mother. There is no one to go with him. They want to take him home.
Then last night a man came.

He was brought to the center at 8 PM. We got a call saying that a very very sick person has come for admission. We live 2 kms away from the Jeevan Sahara Community Care Centre. Sheba left immediately, but by the time Sheba arrived at hospital the man had already passed away.

Lets give the man a name. We will call him Yashwant. Our staff had met Yashwant earlier when he had been admitted to the civil hospital. Like Nelson, he had only an aging mother with him to look after him then. When he came to JSK at 8 at night it was only with his mother again.

After he died, however, many relatives appeared. Where were they when Yashwant was alive?

The lot of a person with HIV can be very lonely. And most of the loneliness is due to purposeful neglect. Shame by other family members. Weariness from caring and giving money. Coldness due to past wrongs done and bridges burned. Fear of the disease and the stigma that surrounds it.

Each person so complicated. What we are finding is that the Community Care Centre is putting us in touch with people who have had extreme experiences. Though we have just started this phase of our work, I think it has already begun to take its toll on us.

At 11 AM noon today, Sheba was about to go over to the centre when she had a severe pain in her lower abdomen. She could not stand. We had to put her into bed. Sheba has remained in dull pain for most of the day - and sharp pain when she stands. She has dropped off to sleep now.

In the meantime - in the early afternoon - an HIV positive boy came to the JSK Centre with a 104 degree fever and shallow breathing. With Sheba unable to come, Agnes our main nurse called Dr. Marise who helps out 2 days a week. Marise came over, and the boy was stabilised. Our staff was about to discharge him home in the late afternoon - without having to be admitted.

Nelson's family took him home this afternoon too. How long he lives is a hard question. How his family is to look after him with his violence and anger is another. We don't have any simple answers - but that is why we are here. To serve. To show the love that God through Jesus gave to us in the first place - undeserving, wild, ungrateful, incoherent us!

Its 23.18 as I type this and another day starts at 5 AM tomorrow.

Onwards!