After managing to hold everything together during the five weeks that I had been in Senegal, I returned thinking this trip would be far easier since I would be doing multimedia and interviewing government officials instead of recording patient stories. I really wasn't expecting to hear bad news this time, which is huge denial considering the type of work involved.
My flight had been delayed due to some security issue, so I arrived two hours later than I had expected to. Apparently someone checked in a bunch of baggage but never boarded the flight, so they had to go through all the luggage and remove those pieces. I sat next to a guy who felt like telling me about the problems of his marriage, which I listened to politely for ten minutes before telling him I was going to sleep...and pretending to be asleep. At one point he tried to wake me up by saying, "wake up," but I pretended not to hear him. The weather was beautiful--hot like New York, but with a dry heat instead of the heavy humidity that hangs over Manhattan. It was nice that all the hotel staff still recognized me, and I went to my room determined not to take a nap so I could get used to the time difference sooner.
I called one of the mothers whose child had passed away, to schedule a time to talk about the short film clip that we would be producing to accompany our advocacy. Her child had been sick for several months, and he remained at the hospital while doctors tried to "discover" whatever "bizarre" disease he had--they thought it was a new disease. It turned out he had a cancerous tumors growing on his bones, and passed away in excruciating pain, during a morphine shortage. I wasn't sure how to ask a person like her whether she wants to be in our film or not. On one hand, her testimony is so important in conveying the severity of the problem, and also associates a human face with the words that we write. On the other, I imagine myself asking her to describe, for the camera, how her 5 year old died in horrendous conditions, and I feel sick.
I finally did it by telling her that I didn't want to make her do anything that she was uncomfortable with--that we wanted to use her son's story because it would help prevent the same fate from happening to other children in the future--and that I understood if it was too painful for her to do. In the end, she said she wanted to help our cause as much as possible, but did not want to speak on film for several reasons. One, many of her friends and family did not know her son had cancer--she is a very private person, and definitely would not want them to hear the news by seeing it on TV. Two, she does not like being filmed. Most importantly however, she said that the death was in the past, and she did not want to relive it again. "It might help other children, but my son is gone. It is every parent's hope to watch their child grow, and I will never see that."
We continued to sit and talk, and she showed me and my cameraman photos of her time at the hospital, and gave me updates on the other patients. It turned out that pretty much all of the inpatients that shared the side of the hospital with her had passed away. That wing, with a total of 8 beds, was reserved for more serious cases. Throughout my five weeks, people went in and out every few weeks or so, but I got to know them better because they were there every day for significant periods of time. If I had free time, sometimes I would fan one of them, for the heat and also to keep away the flies, or play with them. I knew that some of the kids in that ward would die, but I guess I always kept a naive hope that the ones that I became close to would be among the supposed 60% who do survive.
I had become quite close to one girl, a 14 year old who had been sick for some time, recovered, and then relapsed. When I interviewed her, I asked her what was the biggest help she had received from the hospital, and she had said, "it's when they tell me not to lose hope. That maybe, one day I can be cured." Along those lines, I guess I also thought positively. I showed her photos from my travels, and she had said, "Every place is so beautiful. Except for Senegal." I had come to believe that this girl was getting better; I would ask her about her future plans, and which university she might want to attend, what country she might travel to. Before I left, I gave her a watercolor set and watercolor paper. This time, I had brought a stuffed toy as a gift.
I had been planning to ask her if I could interview her as an example of a more positive story of treatment that worked. When I asked the mother of the boy who had bone cancer about her, she said, "she's in very bad condition, suffering a lot; you should go visit." We made a phone call, to another patient who was at the hospital, and found out that this girl had died last Tuesday. I really wish I had gone to Senegal earlier--one week ago, and I would have at least seen her.
My flight had been delayed due to some security issue, so I arrived two hours later than I had expected to. Apparently someone checked in a bunch of baggage but never boarded the flight, so they had to go through all the luggage and remove those pieces. I sat next to a guy who felt like telling me about the problems of his marriage, which I listened to politely for ten minutes before telling him I was going to sleep...and pretending to be asleep. At one point he tried to wake me up by saying, "wake up," but I pretended not to hear him. The weather was beautiful--hot like New York, but with a dry heat instead of the heavy humidity that hangs over Manhattan. It was nice that all the hotel staff still recognized me, and I went to my room determined not to take a nap so I could get used to the time difference sooner.
I called one of the mothers whose child had passed away, to schedule a time to talk about the short film clip that we would be producing to accompany our advocacy. Her child had been sick for several months, and he remained at the hospital while doctors tried to "discover" whatever "bizarre" disease he had--they thought it was a new disease. It turned out he had a cancerous tumors growing on his bones, and passed away in excruciating pain, during a morphine shortage. I wasn't sure how to ask a person like her whether she wants to be in our film or not. On one hand, her testimony is so important in conveying the severity of the problem, and also associates a human face with the words that we write. On the other, I imagine myself asking her to describe, for the camera, how her 5 year old died in horrendous conditions, and I feel sick.
I finally did it by telling her that I didn't want to make her do anything that she was uncomfortable with--that we wanted to use her son's story because it would help prevent the same fate from happening to other children in the future--and that I understood if it was too painful for her to do. In the end, she said she wanted to help our cause as much as possible, but did not want to speak on film for several reasons. One, many of her friends and family did not know her son had cancer--she is a very private person, and definitely would not want them to hear the news by seeing it on TV. Two, she does not like being filmed. Most importantly however, she said that the death was in the past, and she did not want to relive it again. "It might help other children, but my son is gone. It is every parent's hope to watch their child grow, and I will never see that."
We continued to sit and talk, and she showed me and my cameraman photos of her time at the hospital, and gave me updates on the other patients. It turned out that pretty much all of the inpatients that shared the side of the hospital with her had passed away. That wing, with a total of 8 beds, was reserved for more serious cases. Throughout my five weeks, people went in and out every few weeks or so, but I got to know them better because they were there every day for significant periods of time. If I had free time, sometimes I would fan one of them, for the heat and also to keep away the flies, or play with them. I knew that some of the kids in that ward would die, but I guess I always kept a naive hope that the ones that I became close to would be among the supposed 60% who do survive.
I had become quite close to one girl, a 14 year old who had been sick for some time, recovered, and then relapsed. When I interviewed her, I asked her what was the biggest help she had received from the hospital, and she had said, "it's when they tell me not to lose hope. That maybe, one day I can be cured." Along those lines, I guess I also thought positively. I showed her photos from my travels, and she had said, "Every place is so beautiful. Except for Senegal." I had come to believe that this girl was getting better; I would ask her about her future plans, and which university she might want to attend, what country she might travel to. Before I left, I gave her a watercolor set and watercolor paper. This time, I had brought a stuffed toy as a gift.
I had been planning to ask her if I could interview her as an example of a more positive story of treatment that worked. When I asked the mother of the boy who had bone cancer about her, she said, "she's in very bad condition, suffering a lot; you should go visit." We made a phone call, to another patient who was at the hospital, and found out that this girl had died last Tuesday. I really wish I had gone to Senegal earlier--one week ago, and I would have at least seen her.
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