A hard day's night

Tonite I am spending the night sleeping on the floor of the sick room, sleeping next to Sammy. He is, once again, very sick. He got off the school bus and came right here, he didn’t even go to the cottage. His fever is over 104, he has a bad headache, lungs sound pretty crappy. I have been with him since 2 o’clock this afternoon and will stay with him until the morning. He has asked numerous times “susan you are here until the morning?”I tell him yes and then he goes back to sleep. I read his “chart” and talked to Sr. Matron. She’s this wonderful nun who was on leave last time I was here and just returned from leave this week. She has this wonderful way about her and seems quite knowledgable, not so much medicine by myth. I’ve learned that Sammy who is 11, but who looks like he’s 5 or 6, has been on ARVs for 5 years but has never done well. He’s not grown well and has had lots of illnesses. They have tried all their different drug combinations which unfortunately are not as numerous as the States, all to no avail. Some they had to stop because they weren’t available anymore here, which probably added to the resistance.
They were finally, a few months ago, able to test his blood with all the available drugs and see if any would work. He unfortunately tested resistant to all but 2, one of which is not available in Kenya, (FTC)the other he was on in 2001 and it didn’t help. Still, they restarted the one they do have, 3TC, but one drug really won’t cut it. I think the next few months will have many nights like this, but again, this is why I’m here.
My Fulbright project boxes have arrived at the Embassy and I’m going to pick them up tomorrow. I will talk to the PEPFAR people tomorrow and maybe they will have some suggestions or even access to more current drugs for Sammy, (thank you ali for that idea). Sarah is sitting up with me so at least I will have company. The other volunteers will cover the next night. I probably won’t post this until tomorrow night, hopefully I will bbe able to add good news.
A few other things: we’ve been told the hot shower or lack of situation is not going to change, too expensive to fix. I was having phone problems, the Kenyans are always fixing our phones for us, but even they couldn’t fix it. So I had to take it to pascal, he’s our computer/electronic guru, he asked my for my phone number, at the blank look on my face he sighed and said “mizungos never know their phone number.” I’ve since memorized it. He did fix the phone.

Friday morning update: We made it through< Sarah stayed with me until 2, sammy woke up at about 2:30 with my favorite vomiting and also a high fever again. he finally settled down though slept restlessly the rest of the night until 6. I slept on blankets on the floor. Today he seems a little bit better, the doctor is coming this afternoon and I'm going to the embassy this morning to beg some new drugs. I did get a warm shower this morning in Jim's room, made up for the long night. Keep him in your thoughts and prayers.
xoxoxo little boy, timmy stay safe.