Marco

Marco Antonio, the 11 year old suffering from paracoccidioidomycosis, died this past weekend. He was in intensive care for over a week and I got the tragic call on Sunday morning at 2 am. I saw him just 6 hours earlier, so I knew he was in a terrible state and wasn’t going to hang on much longer. The night before he had suffered a heart attack and they had to revive him with paddles. The longer he stayed in the hospital, the less hope I had that he would ever return to full health.

We helped his mother get his body back to Yapacani yesterday, and the burial was scheduled for today. He needed a lot of blood in the last week, and we had a hard time finding someone who qualified to donate—the mother (Cristina), Lisa, Joe, one of the women at Douglas ’ office, and I all tried and were rejected. But a friendly cab driver was willing to donate as long as we would compensate him for the time he spent off the road! We still owe blood, so we're planning to try a new blood bank that might be a little more lenient (the other one they wouldn't accept Joe because he is taking malaria prophylaxis).

While I feel reassured that Marco isn't suffering any more, his mother is certainly devastated. Having our support gave her great hope that she would one day return to Yapacani with her son alive and healthy. She had barely been sleeping or eating over the last week because there isn't a bed for her in intensive care and they staff at the hospital relied on her being there to help them. She has also spent her last 4 weeks away from her three younger children and her mother. She believed that all of this sacrifice would eventually pay off. Cristina (the mother) called this morning wanting us to drive out to the burial, about 2.5 hours away. I probably could have dropped my duties for the day, but decided that she needed most to be with her family and that we would visit later in the week when we were out at the rural clinic (only 30-45 minutes away). It's hard to know how much support to provide without creating a dependence. In this case, we became Cristina's family during the time she was in Santa Cruz, and now we are suddenly far away.