The Joy of a Little Laughter

After meeting Elvis (refer to previous post) and seeing his desperate situation, we decided to dig deeper. What we found was information about his two youngest siblings, Austin and Clinton whose circumstances were even more critical.

When we arrived they were on the floor in a pile of dirty clothes and rags, sitting in their own waste. Both were suffering from malnutrition. Clinton, 18 months old, was the size of a 6 month old. He had thinning, frazzled hair, and was underdeveloped in every way possible: he was not crawling, walking, or talking, even crying at this point was a stretch. He was totally disinterested, he had refused any food of water for over 24 hours at that point. His brother Austin, 3 years old, couldn’t walk either due to a broken leg that hadn’t healed properly and had recently lost his vision because of malnutrition.

Patrick (JCO Director/Nurse) and I jumped on the back of dirt bikes, each with a baby in our arms and rode to the nearest hospital in Siaya (approx. 45 min ride). It is government hospital, so the facilities are limited to put it mildly and it was packed full of people waiting for some sort of treatment. While we waited, I kept trying to get Clinton to eat or drink something and it was not going well until I gave him a taste of strawberry yogurt. We didn’t have a spoon, so I fed him yogurt with the end of a straw for the next few hours.

We were there with them in the hospital for 6 hours that day. During that time I held Clinton, gave him yogurt and water, wiped his constant sweat from fever, and tried comfort him while they took his blood. He never left my arms. Every once in awhile he would just look up at me and I am sure he was trying to figure out who I was, but he never let go and neither did I.

Both boys had to stay in the hospital and be treated for malnutrition and severe cases of malaria. Thankfully we found them when we did, according to the doctors they only had a matter of days. They were in the hospital for almost 2 weeks and then we moved them into our home, the JCO Children’s Centre with their brother Elvis.

 

All of our children welcomed their new siblings with open arms. Especially our older girls, they couldn’t stop snuggling these little ones. Very soon after arriving Austin was right at home, he was laughing and singing. Although he couldn’t see, he began to acclimate to his new environment fairly quickly. Clinton on the other hand just sat back and observed, never laughing or crying, as if he was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I just kept waiting for the day that he would laugh or smile… and then, it came! He actually started laughing at my dancing and since that day it takes no more than a little tickle to get him rolling.

We were told originally that Austin’s sight would not be restored, but we gave him supplements specific for eyesight anyway (omegas and Vitamin A).  After a few weeks of living with us we noticed some changes when he walked across the room to pick something up! The next day he was taken to a Rotary Eye Clinic in Kisumu and this doctor had a very different diagnosis. He said that Austin should gain most of his vision back! Although the malnutrition had caused the loss in vision — just a few weeks of consistent nutrition and supplements had begun to restore it! Pretty amazing!