By: Becky Meyer

"Fear. It was gripping my heart and squeezing so tight I could barely breathe."

We were in a hospital with our new 3-year old son whom, just three days earlier, we had picked up from the medical orphanage he lived at. This hospital was in a foreign country where we knew only enough of the language to count to 10, name some animals, and say things like “Good day,” “Please,” and “Thank You.” We were in a culture we didn’t understand. That day we had encountered the Bulgarian lack of urgency (when we told our agency that we needed to take our son to the hospital, they showed up two hours later) and we experienced the Bulgarian medical system that would not allow a child with diarrhea to be admitted to any hospital but the infectious disease hospital.

That is where we currently found ourselves, at the infectious disease hospital. Calling it a hospital conjures up certain images in your mind, but let me assure you, that is not what this place was.

"This place was a worried mother’s worst nightmare."

• It was a concrete block building built by the former communist government. Our room was a 6x10 space with glass walls between rooms allowing you to view all the other patients in the ward. There was an ancient medical bed separated by about a foot from an equally ancient metal crib. There was no air conditioning, only a window with no screen. The only toilet for us to use was a hole in the floor.
• There was absolutely no modern medical equipment in sight. When we were admitted, the nurse hand-copied information into a paper chart, our son’s IV was gravity drip with no pump to control the rate, there was no monitoring equipment, and we had to provide our own thermometer that we checked his temperature with.
• They provided nothing for us. There were no gowns for the patients; we had to bring all supplies for our child including diapers, wipes, cups, food, etc; there was a sheet on the crib, but no bedding for the parent’s bed; there was no soap or towels (yes, in an infectious disease hospital).

Our son had not been examined by any medical personnel. They did not look at him when they admitted him, and they did not examine him in the ward. We were told a doctor would come in the morning. We had no idea what was wrong with him, but we knew he was in a lot of pain.

The stress and fear of the day washed over me as I lay squished on the small bed with my husband listening to the moans of our son. Then the most intense thunderstorm I have ever experienced began. There was lightning all around and the loudest thunder imaginable. It was shaking the building. And then the power went out. It was pitch-black in the ward; there were no backup generators to provide lighting. Fear overwhelmed me as I thought, “This seems like the setting of a horror movie.”

"But then the Comforter came."

As the thunder and lightning continued, I began to feel peace. The realization that my God was the creator of the thunder and lightning seeped into me. If he is more powerful than the most intense of storms, he is more powerful than my fears and he is powerful enough to protect and provide for my son. When I told my husband about this the next day, he said he had felt the exact same thing during the storm.

"I would love to say that this peace stayed with me, but I am a sinner and 'do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”

Worry is what I do not want to do, but what I continually fall back to, and for the next week, fear was a constant companion.

No one checked on our son all night. The next morning, they locked my husband out of the ward. When our agency representative arrived to translate for me when the doctor came, they would not allow her to come in. The fear and frustration engulfed me and I had a hyperventilating, crying, raging, fit!

After my breakdown, they allowed our translator to come in to help me talk to the doctor. The doctor did not examine our son at all. He did not listen to him with a stethoscope, he did not feel his abdomen or take a pulse, he did not even touch him. The doctor diagnosed him as having a virus and said that it would take 7 to 14 days to recover from it. I questioned the doctor and asked why he thought my son had a virus and what tests they had run to confirm that diagnosis. He turned to me and said, “Because I have 37 years of experience!” He then said we just needed to get him to drink and eat and he would recover. I explained that he would no longer eat or drink from my husband or me. (At the time we felt that it was because he did not trust us since he became sick when we picked him up, but after finding out what was really wrong with him, we know he was just too sick to eat.) The doctor told me, “You are the mother. That is what you do. You feed your child.” There was no compassion for the fact that we were virtual strangers to our son and he did not see me as his safe and loving mother. The fear again tightened its grip.

Our son got sicker and sicker. The only time he would drink or take medicine was if we could talk a nurse into giving it to him (being raised in a medical orphanage, he obeyed anyone in scrubs). On Tuesday, we tried again to get him in another hospital by asking a favor from a doctor friend of our agency’s owner. After 3 hours at the hospital involving bloodwork and an extensive admitting exam where the doctor told me he must be put on antibiotics immediately, the doctor on the children’s floor refused to accept him because of his diarrhea. Our translator did not question the doctor or tell him that the admitting doctor had diagnosed him with something other than a virus. He just turned to us and told us we would have to leave. When I tried to go back to the admitting physician to find out what she diagnosed him with, the staff would not let me back in to see her or give me a copy of our paperwork. The fear was overwhelming.

"We truly thought our son would die from lack of care."

After many tears, my husband and I came to the conclusion that God was in control and that if he had wanted us in that private hospital, he would have made a way. We knew that our friends and family were all praying for us and for our son. However, the knowledge of both these things stayed at the head level and did not seep into my heart. In my heart I was still fearful and worried.

On Wednesday, God sent his comfort again. This time it was in the form of a flowering tree. It was in the park between the hospital and our apartment. As I was walking by, I stopped to smell its amazing scent and to watch the hundreds of butterflies flitting about its branches. Peace. It filled me up and helped loosen the grip of fear so I could breathe again. I was able to turn my son over to God knowing that he was God’s son long before he was mine. Did I rest in that peace for long? No! I absolutely hated this hospital we were stuck in.

Tuesday night, the doctor started our son on an antibiotic, but on Wednesday he made sure to tell me that our son did not need the antibiotic, he had only prescribed it because he was pressured (by our agency) to do so. We were trying to make plans to fly him to Germany as soon as his visa came through. We continued to communicate with our international adoption pediatrician in the States, and Thursday night she sent me a reference article about Hirschsprungs-associated enterocolitis, which is the leading cause of death in children with Hirschsprungs. This is what she suspected our son had, and it should be treated with antibiotics. (Thank you God that our agency had pressured the doctor into prescribing them.) Then at midnight on Thursday, I had another mini-breakdown when our son needed to take Tylenol to bring down a high fever, butthe nurse on duty refused to give it to him. She yelled at me in Bulgarian and the only word I understood was “American.” So I forced the medicine into my son, which he immediately vomited all over my only set of bedding. The rest of the night, I sat there holding my son, smelling that disgusting mess, and crying out to God to get us out of there.

The next day He did. When the doctor came that morning, I presented him with the reference article about Hirschsprungs-associated enterocolitis. He finally admitted that our son might have something more than a virus going on and agreed to transfer him to the state-run children’s hospital. The surgeons there looked at his history, examined him, took x-rays of his abdomen, and diagnosed him with a toxic infection caused by trapped material in his intestine (aka Hirschsprungs-associated enterocolitis). I cannot describe the peace we felt when they admitted him to this nice, modern facility and began treating him with additional antibiotics.

"God had brought us through the scariest week of our lives. Even when we reverted to fear instead of trust, he did not abandon us. He continued to give us moments of peace and to carry our son to a place where he could receive the treatment he needed."

Our story does not end there. We spent two weeks in that hospital before he was stable enough to fly home. When he came home, we continued to battle recurrent enterocolitis and extreme malnutrition (our 3-year old was wearing 12-month clothing). In all, he spent 90 days of his first 6 months as a member of our family in the hospital and had 3 surgeries. After 8 months, he has finally gained enough weight to get on the growth chart (3^rd percentile, yippee!).  Throughout it all, we have seen time and again how God has provided for us and has calmed our fears and given us His peace.