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Eric
I finish applying another crude cast to the wrist of a sixteen-year-old who jumped off a roof, for whatever reason, and my phone rings.
“Clive, could you finish?” I ask.
He rushes over and takes the last of the material, wrapping it around the kid’s arm. I wipe my wet hands on my scrubs and pull out my phone. It’s a U.S. number.
“Eric Andrews,” I answer.
“Hello, Mr. Andrews,” says a female voice. “This is Stacy with Anco Pharmaceuticals. I have Mr. Anco on the line for you. Please hold.”
My stomach flips with excitement. It was a week ago I’d made all those phone calls.
“Mr. Andrews, how are you?” he asks.
“I’m good, sir. I’m glad you called me back.”
“You had some questions about chemotherapy drugs for your project there in Kenya?” he asks.
“Yes, we are in dire need. Do you donate?”
“Yes, we donate all over the world to the less fortunate. In fact, Stacy is handing me the numbers right now.” I hear a paper crinkling. “Let’s see here... We sent hundreds of doses to Kenya two weeks ago. Did you not get them?”
I rub my hand along the back of my neck. “I don’t think so. All I know is we don’t have any here. I mean, it’s possible it all got distributed to the main hospital there. But I’m in a small village clinic outside of the main city.”
“Can you go there and ask them for some?”
“I did, last week, they said they had none to spare. So I told them I was sending my patient there then. I can’t sit here and watch this twelve-year-old die a slow death.”
He pauses, and says, “I understand. Tell you what, after I vouch for you—because we have to, you see—I’ll have another batch sent over addressed to you personally. I don’t know what the postal system is like over there, but you may want to meet the shipment yourself. I can have Stacy send you exact estimated delivery times, if that helps.”
“That would be very helpful. Can you spare any morphine, fentanyl, or Demerol as well? We are very low and have to ration it, which is obviously heartbreaking to watch people in pain. Especially children.”
“I’ll definitely look into it. I’ll patch you back to Stacy and she can get your email and other information, okay?”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Mr. Anco. The people here will be so grateful.”
“You’re welcome. Thank you for what you do over there. It takes a special person to be so selfless and dedicate their time and sacrifice a salary to do that.”
Well, I don’t deserve to be comfortable.
I swallow hard. “Appreciate it, sir.”
After Stacy gets back on the line, I give her my information and hang up, breathing a sigh of relief.
I go back to my broken wrist patient. His face is twisted in pain, and because it’s not as dire as some, I offer him ibuprofen and hope that will help for a few hours.
He swallows the pills. “Thanks, Dak. How long I wear this?” He holds up the cast.
“Six weeks. And no jumping off of roofs. What were you thinking?”
His gaze cuts to another boy about his age he came in with. “Samual dared me.”
I look scoldingly at Samual. “No more dares. He could have got hurt way worse.”
“Sorry, Dak.”
“Don’t apologize to me!” I bite back a smile.
I walk to our supply drawer and pull out a black Sharpie. For some reason, we have boxes of them. I hand it to Samual. “After it’s dried, you can write a message to Omari here on it. And have other people sign it as well.”
His eyes light up as he takes it. “Thanks, Dak!”
The boys walk off chatting excitedly about what is going to be written and how many people they can get to sign it.
I chuckle and head to the children’s ward.
I see Kwame sitting reading a book, but his eyes droop like he’s about to fall asleep. “Hi, young man. Feeling about the same today?”
He looks worse and I cringe inside.
“Very tired, Dak.” He attempts a weak smile.
I put my hand on his arm. “Well, I have good news. I talked to someone in America. We have some medicine coming, but I’m gonna need you to hang in there, okay?”
“I promise,” he says weakly, then closes his eyes. I listen to his heart and lungs as he rests and his heartbeat is weak.
I look at Nurse Amari. “Answer me this: Have you guys ever just dropped a patient off at the main hospital in town? Even if they try to refuse?”
She looks at me apprehensively and shakes her head. “We not allowed to do that. They told us not to, that they already too crowded with patients and not enough beds or medicine.”
“Well, I was told that shipments of chemotherapy drugs were sent here two weeks ago. I don’t know exactly where, but I’ll ask when I get the email I’m expecting. An American company is going to be sending more drugs and possibly some narcotics, too.”
Her eyes widen and she smiles. “Really?”
I nod and squeeze her shoulder. “Yes. In the meantime though, I think Kwame needs treatment now, like today. I’ll run it by Dr. Alsworth but I think I’m going to transport him to the main hospital. This is ridiculous. He shouldn’t be suffering like this.”
She frowns and shakes her head. “That is not allowed.”
I smile at her. “I don’t give a shit. His life is more important than their rules. Surely there can’t be so many people more sick than him that there’s not room. You and I both know he doesn’t stand a chance here. We have to try.”
She nods. “Okay. I help you.”
I finish my rounds and then find the doc.
“What’s up, Eric?” Jack asks cheerfully.
I decide I’m going to tell and not ask. “I’m going to transport Kwame to the main hospital in town. Can I have the van keys please?”
He shakes his head. “The hospital’s full.”
“I don’t care. That kid is gonna die if we don’t do something.” I tell him about my conversation with Mr. Anco.
His face gets red. “Those supplies were supposed to come here. The main hospital has to share whatever comes in from the pharm companies. That’s infuriating!”
“Which is why I’m moving Kwame there. They want to take our drugs, they can treat him with them.”
“Agreed.” He reaches into his pocket and plunks keys into my hands.
I look at Amari and nod.
I open the back of the van and we use male village volunteers to help us load Kwame’s cot and IV into the van. We have to disconnect the pole and lay the IV bag on his chest, but it’ll work. The men ride with me the thirty minutes over horrid, bumpy dirt roads.
There’s an Emergency Department entrance and I stop the van, putting it in park. I instruct one of the villagers to stay in the driver’s seat because I don’t trust it’ll be here when we come back out.
Four of us carry his cot into the hospital.
“What’s happening?” Kwame asks groggily.
“We are getting you to the big hospital so you can feel better, okay?”
“Thanks, Dak. You da best.” He smiles weakly.
I want to fucking cry.
An American in a white lab coat stops me. “Whoa, whoa! What are you doing?”
“Where’s your cancer ward?”
He glances at the young boy, then at me. He puts his hand out. “Dr. Mark Smith.”
“Eric Andrews, I’m with Doctors Around the World. This is Kwame, twelve years old, advanced leukemia—we think. We keep waiting for cancer drugs but they never arrive. I have a feeling someone from the area has been taking our shipment but that’s a discussion for another day. Where do you want us to put him?”
He looks stressed, but he can tell by the look on my face I’m not leaving with Kwame. “Follow me.”
He leads me to a section of the hospital where there are more cots set up because all the beds are full. People of all ages are hooked up to IVs.
“You have chemotherapy drugs?” I ask.
He nods. “Yes, they are in low supply but we hopefully have some more coming in soon. What stage is his cancer?”
I shake my head. “We don’t know, we have only very crude supplies, and one small X-ray machine.”
He looks at a nurse in dark-green scrubs. “Get him to MRI.” He points at Kwame.
She looks stressed and flicks her gaze to me, then back to him. “Doctor, MRI line very long.”
I put my hand on Dr. Smith’s arm. “It’s okay, let the other patients have their turn, but try to get him in soon.”
He looks at the nurse. “Go find out how long, please.”
She nods and leaves.
The doctor finds a pole and hangs Kwame’s IV on it, and then instructs another nurse to get him some painkillers. They can’t administer the chemo until they know how much to give.
I thank the villagers and ask them to go wait in the van. I turn to Dr. Smith. “Can you take my cell phone number and update me?”
“Sure,” he says, pulling out his phone and handing it to me. I put in my name and contact number and hand it back.
“So are you a doctor, or a volunteer, or what?”
“I’m actually a DPT, but not doing much physical therapy over here. I’ve been doing more first aid—casts, taking care of the sick kids, that kind of stuff. Whatever I can do.”
“I’m sorry, I should have addressed you properly earlier,” he says.
“No, it’s okay. My DPT expired and I don’t... have it back yet,” I say vaguely.
An alarm beeps loudly through the loudspeakers. Someone shouts, “Code blue, room eighteen!”
“I gotta go. I’ll text or call when I have an update!”
I watch him and some other medical staff run off, and head back out to the van.
The thirty-minute drive is done quietly, and when we get back to the village, I thank the guys and they leave.
Later that evening, I check my email and I’m happy to see one from Stacy. The attachments state what drugs they’re sending, how much of each, and the label information—made out to me with an address to the local airport. There’s a tracking number, and it takes forever to load, but I see they sent it out three-day air, so it’ll be here in a few days. I will be there to pick it up when it arrives. I reply and thank her.
This is such good news. I’ve had a good day. A text earlier from Dr. Smith told me they were able to get Kwame an MRI a few hours after I left, and also some extensive bloodwork. They determined it’s about stage two and are starting the chemo immediately.
I don’t regret what I did, in fact, I hope my decision will have saved his life.
A few days ago, I’d asked Amari why Kwame never had any visitors. A lot of the other children had frequent visits by their mothers or grandmothers, sometimes older siblings. He never had anyone. I was told he was orphaned, which explains why he had nobody to fight for him. Well, he does now. I’m going to make that bumpy thirty-minute ride as often as I can to go check on him. He shouldn’t be alone, but I have hope that he’ll pull through.