Day 22 11pm

“Prior planning prevents poor performance”...what a load of b******s.

Sitting in St Theresa’s Hospital, watching the doctor write in Finnley’s notes after he awoke with a slight fever and cough; I couldn’t make out what his quick scribbled said...“suspected”..nope “suspicious”..nope “severe” yep...“severe malaria”. WHAT?

Choking back tears of fright I asked him to try to explain how he had diagnosed my son with malaria. Finnley hadn’t even had his blood examined for the parasite. He was taking the best anti-malarial, wore DEET spray continually, slept under a net and dressed in full length clothes, more to the point had no insect bites on him. Confused and terrified I ask to see his blood results from a finger prick test, the only abnormal one was his white blood cell count was raised slightly; indicating an infection.  Doctor explained that it was not serious and that he would give him an antibiotic for the infection as well as an injection and a liquid anti malarial in case it was malaria. Suddenly I stopped fretting so much, they were covering all corners and asked for me to bring Finnley back on Wednesday for a check up. When we got back Finnley’s temperature was still raised so I bathed him and put him to bed with a cool flannel, he fell asleep quickly and didn’t wake until this morning.

Last night however I got little sleep, paranoid about Finnley’s health I seemed to wake up every 2 minutes to check he was still breathing, on top of that, there was a torrential rain storm, and no electricity meant I only had my torch light to check his temperature and colour. When he woke today he seemed fine, no temperature, no cough and I just sneaked his medications down his throat with his cereal (which he ate 3 bowls of as he was starving). I spoke to Francis’ family whom are ever so sweet, but have traditional views on illness. With the communication barrier they thought it was the heat and the fan in the room that made him ill, there was no way that I could explain to them about a parasitic infection, so just nodded politely.

Today the storm stopped about mid afternoon and because of it all the children were at home. So we sat down and made some badges with them to wear. Again I noticed the lack of imagination and they just wanted to copy what I had drawn. They refuse to draw for themselves if I draw a picture with one  of them, almost as if i cause offence by not drawing the exact same thing for them all. Divine however is an angel, he is about 10 and he is the one I leave in charge if Finn needs a wee or I have to pop out the room. He will always return whatever I lend him, which therefore means I lend him pens, whilst most of the others use pencils, as well as being honest. When I arrived all the children lied to me about hitting each other and I ignored them, not punished them and now they are honest to me. They realise if they lie or hit they will not join in with activities or get any of my attention.

It has felt like a long day as I have been tired, but I have enjoyed spending lots of time with Finnley and the children together. Finnley still has a normal temperature and is back to being his usual self, so hopefully it was just a little infection that he could have just as easily picked up in the UK. The mediations cost me 40 cedis, about £18 – and this was to cover him from malaria and a bacterial infection. Some families cannot even afford that in order to save their child’s life as it would mean the rest of the family could not eat for a month. It has made me realise that poverty some of these children live in and because of the lack of jobs, it means a lack of money and a lack of education, leading back to lack of jobs. It would be so hard to break out of the poverty barrier here in Ghana, I have a huge amount of respect and empathy with those that are struggling and still bring up happy, healthy children.

Rachel x