Finally all the tests were over. I’ll post Sheba’s mail here so you can get an idea of what it means:Thank you for your constant prayers. Luke was discharged last night fromthe Cleveland Children’s hospital with the following brief diagnosis. All tests point to a metabolic disorder. They havent told if the condition existed at birth, but his symptoms definitely started early as he used to be allergic to protein from about 3 months. The ophthalmologists confirmed that this has affected his optic nerve which is why he currently has limited vision. This might also explain why he sometimes blinks for a few minutes when he first wakes up and sees light. ButNo explanation has been given for:1. His significant…

Just as I was about to go off for lunch Joyce called up and said she had a little gift for me. We met and she handed me my ‘gift’ – The ‘Petra -Farewell’ VCD. Awesome!! I was pretty excited and decided to spend the weekend listening to it. I finally saw/listened to it on sunday and it brought back a flood of memories: Petra was one of the first Christian bands I ever listened to when I was in school and i know that their music was intrumental in getting me off secular and rock music that I was wading into! Remembered the few Petra songs we sang at church, the concert I attened in Bangalore and all the…

After a nearly-sleepless friday night, rounds and the nursery were well-behaved on saturday. Dr. Anil was on call this weekend and I was s’posed to lead worship on sunday at church. We couldnt meet for practice on saturday evening like we usually do as I hadnt yet chosen the songs and also Dr. Anil was at a meeting till 6 PM. I finally handed over the pager at 7 PM to him and set to work putting things together for the worship session. I called up people – Jyothi said she would make it and Sara and Sonia confirmed their availability. Abu and Kenny were not there, so there was noone to play the keys. I managed to catch Cynthia…

At around 5 PM we had a sick baby admitted in nursery. The mother was a staff nurse who was 37 years old and the baby had been found to have a lot of edema on a scan this morning – fluid around the lungs, heart in the abdomen and underneath the skin. He did not cry at delivery and needed resuscitation. A quick look showed that he had Down Syndrome. The cord pH was 6.9 – indicating that he was ‘severely asphyxiated’. He was having severe breathing difficulty. Within an hour he had his first seizure. There was a loud murmur when we heard his heart and that meant he probably had a major heart disease too. Normally we…

Sunday morning started off with a bang! I entered level 2 Nursery and was staring at a new baby with massive ascites(fluid in the abdomen). I’d never managed a baby like that before and was a little worried. After getting a scan done and informing the surgeons, I was about to call up someone to make a plan for the baby when magically out of nowhere manish simply popped into nursery and soon we took out a little fluid out of the abdomen and found it to be meconium tinged fluid – that meant that the baby had perforated his gut in-utero. After stabilising the baby with some plasma and inotropes and speaking to the parents, he was taken for…

Today was supposed to be a tight day – Pillai was on leave and that left us with Beryl – who was new – and Saravanan only. Luckily the day was not busy and most of the work went on well. I was on duty this weekend and therefore was a little nervous. After lunch I managed a great peaceful nap in the duty room. Saravanan and Beryl managed well and did not need my help. Night rounds went on smoothly and Athing and Praburam managed well. We got a bay who dies soon after birth with multiple anomolies and we managed to make a diagnosis and also speak to the family well so that they accepted the news peacefully.I…

Today wasnt a nice day. Last night’s duty was OK and the day started off OK.Then there was a streak of uncomfortable incidents. The parents of two babies wanted to stop treatment and I couldnt convince them. This made me feel very inadequate and helpless. Made me feel upset and angry. Then we tried a percutaneous central line insertion for a baby with malaria ( last night I couldnt get IV access for this baby and luckily Saravanan managed to cannulate a vein) and after multiple attempts trying the veins in the limbs Pillai, Manish and I were unsuccessful. After rounds Manish and I tried the scalp veins and failed again. Again felt helpless. Would have been a terrible day….

The first thing I did this morning when I woke up was to check my mail to see what Ryan had decided. I almost leapt with joy – he had unsuspended my website with a note asking me to disable the forms page responsible for the spam. I did that in 10 minutes and did a quick check to see that all was OK. Felt happy!! Also managed to get to work on time.Now I have to try to think of a way to prevent such hack attempts. I’m not code/tech savvy – hope there’s a simple solution to this…..

Today was an action packed day. Here’s all what heppened:Church:Miriam, Jyothi and Vidhya were leading worship. I turned in early to help out with the guitars. We had a brief practice. Abu landed up just as we were winding up, but felt confident enough to play the keys (He’s a pro now!!) Worship was amazing. The girls also sang a special song just before the sermon came out awesome! Samuel uncle gave a wonderfulk sermon on “Walking with God”. Although the testimony time was short we were truely blessed by a person from IEM (Indian Evangelical Mission) shared about their ministry and some practical difficulties. Try this: People who were trying to translate the Bible into a local language in…

Glorious – a 50 member choir – were performing at our College auditorium today. Luckily I was not on duty and pulled along Manish to the concert. After a little confusion meeting up, we were soon on the bus and made it on time to the auditorium.The program was fantabulous! The music was amazing and the testimonies and sharing were so encouraging. I am at a loss for words to describe it – so full of energy and so filled with the love of Christ!I’m still lost in the beauty of the concert……. After it was over bumped into Cynthia [;-)]and then Manish and I had dinner together before coming back to my room.The issue about my website being suspended…