Musa Update

I realized today that I never gave an update on the kid “Musa” that we did an operation on a couple of months ago.  Allow me to do so now.  You can read about the first half of the story here.  Musa finished the surgery and did pretty well. He was in a lot of pain but gradually started getting better. After a week or so he was ready to be discharged. He asked if he could take me to his house when he went home, so I followed he, his mom and his brother home.  I got a lot of “Musa, look your wife has come!” comments as we were walking. (Keep in mind, he’s about 14). 

Musa and I after his first discharge

We got to his house and the Imam (Islamic leader) for the community came out to greet me.  I sat down with the family and exchanged pleasantries for awhile.  As I was preparing to leave they dropped the bomb that they wanted to “give me Musa.”  Wait. What? Even though I’ve lived here for a while, I’m still not always up on what these things mean. Pay his school fees? Give him a place to sleep? Not sure.  So I do what I usually do in those awkward situations. Chuckle like they’re joking, say “oooohhhh Thank You…” like I thought they were kidding and slyly get up and walk away.  It’s an art form…. In awkwardness.  I’ve learned to embrace it.

The next night I got a call from one of the nursing assistants down at the hospital. Apparently he had seen Musa at his house and he’d taken a turn for the worse.  The family wanted to take him somewhere to get some medicine but the nursing assistant told them they should talk to me first.  I asked if he looked sick enough to be admitted and he said he’d be fine overnight. I told him to tell Musa to come to the hospital in the morning and I’d see him.

When I got to the hospital the next morning they had already re-admitted him. His abdomen was swelling again and he just didn’t look good. We started him on a week of antibiotics (virtually unheard of here as they are so expensive) and decided to wait and see.

After about a week he just wasn’t getting better. Or he’d get better, but then worse again, back and forth.  Finally we decided that we just had to take him back to surgery to find out what was going on. I was afraid. He was so weak and had lost so much weight, I was afraid he wouldn’t survive the surgery. But we just didn’t have another choice.

The next day I went down to the OR for the surgery. When they opened him up they found two things. One, the cyst that was his original problem, had started to grow back. He also had a big ole’ bowel obstruction (the poop got all stopped up and wouldn’t come out).  We had a different surgeon this time and he could see why the cyst came back and proceeded to fix it. He also fixed the bowel obstruction. Praise the Lord there was no dead bowel!!  (PS it was the first time I’d watched one of those repaired and it was gross!!!  I thought there would be a more high tech way to fix it but nope. Stick a hole in the bowel, squeeze out the poop that’s stopped it up….sew up the hole.  Gross).

This time after surgery, Musa did great!! I did have to run intervention one night when his mom called me in utter frustration because Musa was refusing to take it easy in his bed.  (This was the first day after surgery).  She was beside herself.  In his defense he'd felt bad for SO long and was just tired of laying in bed.  I went down to the hospital and had a little chat with them both and they became friends again.  Teenagers and their moms......in every culture. :)

Musa came over for science class one day.  We made....a green volcano.  Use what you have :)

His body still had zero fat on it, but over the last couple of months he’s really gotten stronger.  Since he had to drop out of school due to his illness he doesn’t have a lot to do during the day so he comes around my house a lot. He and Marie have developed quite a friendship with her idolizing everything he does and he graciously tolerating all her questions and bossiness. My favorite part is that during this whole thing, Musa developed a great interest in the Bible and in Jesus.  To be honest, I’m always a little hesitant when this happens in these kinds of circumstances because I don’t know if it’s genuine or if they’re just trying to please the person that helped him. I’ve explained to him many times that whether or not he chooses to follow Jesus will in no way affect our relationship, but he persisted that he was interested.  So my friend Peter and I have started meeting with him every Thursday night to begin talking about what it looks like to follow Jesus. I remembered last week how much I love teaching.  I don’t know how good I am at it, but talking to other people about how awesome Jesus is reminds me of all the reasons I love him. Win win!!