The Turning Point 5

  I was sleeping in our den that we converted into a room, Demba was next to me, as we slept, in my dream I saw a man wearing a white gown. The man put his lips together and blew air from his mouth and the air was strong enough that my hair on my head was shifted I then turned and looked at Demba his face was covered with black flies and I smelled something rotten in the air. I was shortly awakened by my husband entering the room.

  I left work on Friday June 13, to pick up Demba from his sitter. I arrived and saw that his left testicle was the size of a baseball; when this takes place it is described as an inguinal hernia. I rushed Demba to the emergency room at Children’s Hospital in DC. The hours passed and a doctor finally came to see us; we explained and he told us that it was nothing for us to be concerned about; he stated that Demba will have a laparoscopic surgery to repair his hernia; he then literally pushed his testicle in place.

  

            Demba had the surgery on Saturday and he came home on Tuesday. He seemed tired upon discharge and I noticed that the shirt the nurse was wearing had Dembas vomit all over but she dismissed it as reflux. The vomiting started again when we came home and as it stopped we thought nothing of it. We were first time parents and after all he was just released from the hospital. In the morning Demba had a temperature and he did not look well my mother came over just to visit Demba and at first glance she asked that my husband and her should take Demba to the hospital. I left for work.

 

The events that took place in the hospital where relayed to me as such: in the emergency room the doctors gave Demba a sweet substance to taste and he refused so he was rushed into surgery and an incision was made to open up his stomach; upon opening his stomach they discovered 80% of Dembas small intestine was twisted. The small intestine has a greater function than the large intestine because it is a vital organ that helps with the digestive flow as it processes the body’s nutrients.  By the time I arrived at the hospital Demba was ready for surgery, the doctor came out and told us that he had a 50% rate of survival. The prayers, tears and question commenced all at once.

After the surgery, Demba was taken to a recovery room and what I saw is to this day, the most disturbing sight in my life. My son laid in the bed with all of his intestines hung on something that looked like a close line and it was covered in plastic, his insides were suspended in air it seemed. The color of his skin that was once mocha turned into charcoal and his eyes were rolled back in his head and but his eyelids were twitching and I smelled that smell that I dreamt about, like something was rotting. I passed out.

            Demba was officially diagnosed with short bowel-syndrome, the hospital provided no answers. In the history of Children’s Hospital Dembas case is one of its kind, we never pursed his case with the legal force as most people advised us to do because only God can be the judge of all human beings. Demba does not eat by mouth yet; he feeds from a g-tube and has a central line where he gets his supplemental nutrition. He is five years old now and if your see him you would never guess he was a sick child. He is extremely intelligent and is only delayed in the areas of social adaptive behavior.