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Friday, September 20, 2013

Screening Patient

2 years ago Emmanuel was diagnosed with "Malaria". He was prescribed antimalarial tablets to help but it didn't seem to work.  So his parents took him to a hospital in Kinshasa where doctors found that in fact it wasn't malaria that he had, there was a tumour in his neck that was slowly suffocating him.  The hospital said they were unable to provide treatment and sent him home.  His breathing began getting worse to the point that he would loose consciousness up to 3 times a day.  His mother started taking him to the hospital every time he passed out but eventually she stopped because they couldn't do anything.

Meanwhile in August his father was working in the port of Pointe Noire when he saw a big white ship, the Africa Mercy, sailing in.  He heard about the hospital and the work we were going to do in the Congo and started to hope that maybe we could help his son.  Although it was still 2 weeks before we had our selection date, the family bought a calendar and started marking off the days to the screening so they could take Emmanuel.

During the screening there was an EMT call ("emergency medical treatment") for this little boy and when the doctor saw him he could hardly breathe.  So he was immediately scheduled for one of the first surgeries on board with the hope that he would have a chance. 

On board he was only awake for small amounts of time, his body struggled to get oxygen, then when he did sleep it would be short because he stopped breathing, time was short.  On the 4th September he was operated on to remove a tumour the size of a fist and it wasn't long before he was released to go home.  
We are thankful to God that we were here just in time for him and now he has a full future ahead of him.

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