Amy

this is my patient Amy. she´s very sweet and about 6 months old. her mother brought her in because she has had fever for several days, as well as cough and is not well. She is like the other 30 or 40 kids under the age of 2 i´ve seen in 2 days with the same symptoms. it´s an epidemic of some upper respiratory infection running rampant among these people who live so close together in such poor conditions.
Amy, however, i´m pretty sure has pneumonia. i´m only pretty sure because i don´t trust the accuracy of my physical exam skills... because that´s all i have here. in our lab we can´t check to see if her blood shows signs of infection. we can´t do a chest X-Ray. so only my hands, ears, eyes, mind and her mother´s description told me that she has pneumonia.
hopefully, it will be responsive to high doses of Amoxicillin. not the best choice for pneumonia, but again... all we have. i try not to think of the 2 babies i admitted to the hospital in Ecuador with pneumonia who had been treated with Amoxicillin at a different hospital for 7 days before... and had gotten worse. just pray that the LORD will make up for all we lack and bring healing to her little body.