It is almost two weeks ago that two ladies and a baby came to our door, asking for help. It was the mother and the grandmother of Esther. The mother was HIV+ and told us that Esther also was tested and was found HIV+. The father abandoned the family and Esther was sick. After more talking , we agreed to take Esther in, her weight was 5,5 kg and she is 15 months old. She refused to drink or eat, only water she took. We decided to bring in a NG tube and to feed her every two hours, a mixture of milk with some extra energy/calorie rich powder. We took her again for HIV test and she came out HIV-!!!!! We were very happy with that, the first test must have shown the antibodies from the mother, which stay in the blood of the baby for quite some time. But there were still many problems, Esther still refuses to eat or drink and she had still bad diarrhea and she is not gaining. We went several times with her to the doctor and now we seem to have success with the present medicines, the diarrhea is getting less, but she is still not drinking. We still feed her by the NG tube. But today at the table, she was eating a piece of meat. She is getting some more interest in her surroundings and............she has a boyfriend!!!! Maybe that is doing the trick, she was playing together with Rafael. Maybe is a boyfriend just what she needs now! So we put them together(under supervision, of course!) and we will see what it does. I am happy that she is sitting by herself and interact (a little) with others.
Rafael and Esther
This afternoon I went with Simon and Josephine and their twins for a check-up to the doctor. We have been visiting them at their home this week, they are doing fine, but the feeding is not so easy. On Thursday (they were 4 days old) the little boy had lost 270 gram and the girl only 30 gram. The picture is taken on Saterday, we went with our Amecet weighing scale to them and weighed them again. The boy had gained a little and together they weighed 3450 gram. The feeding goes a bit better, Josephine is also using a syringe and a bottle to feed them, of course together with the breast milk. It is a lot of work for her, but she is doing really good. I pray that they will start gaining soon!
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