Kuac

I want to tell you about one of my favorite patients. There's a little boy in the ICU that we've been taking care of for two years. His name is Kuac. Like Crotch pronounced with a lisp.
He has pretty pronounced lung disease and is nearly oxygen dependent. He can only go a few hours without it on before he gets breathless and tired. He requires constant medical monitoring, daily medications, and unless South Sudan gets some sort of home health care system and Aweil installs city wide electricity or Kuac's family gets a generator to run his oxygen machine and suction machine, he will never be able to be discharged in good conscience. So with us he remains. He's almost 3 years old and he's spent nearly 2 of those years in Aweil Civil Hospital under the care of MSF nurses and doctors. Before you start to feel sorry for him you should know that he doesn't seem to mind all the attention. Neither do his parents who have 24-7 day care for both him and his 8 year old sister that takes care of him and doesn't seem to go to school ever. They're fed, looked after, and we're even working on potty training Kuac. It doesn't get much better than that in Aweil. He is pretty cute though. Can you blame us for wanting him around all the time?