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I look at Amari and nod.
I open the back of the van and we use male village volunteers to help us load Kwame’s cot and IV into the van. We have to disconnect the pole and lay the IV bag on his chest, but it’ll work. The men ride with me the thirty minutes over horrid, bumpy dirt roads.
There’s an Emergency Department entrance and I stop the van, putting it in park. I instruct one of the villagers to stay in the driver’s seat because I don’t trust it’ll be here when we come back out.
Four of us carry his cot into the hospital.
“What’s happening?” Kwame asks groggily.
“We are getting you to the big hospital so you can feel better, okay?”
“Thanks, Dak. You da best.” He smiles weakly.
I want to fucking cry.
An American in a white lab coat stops me. “Whoa, whoa! What are you doing?”
“Where’s your cancer ward?”
He glances at the young boy, then at me. He puts his hand out. “Dr. Mark Smith.”
“Eric Andrews, I’m with Doctors Around the World. This is Kwame, twelve years old, advanced leukemia—we think. We keep waiting for cancer drugs but they never arrive. I have a feeling someone from the area has been taking our shipment but that’s a discussion for another day. Where do you want us to put him?”
He looks stressed, but he can tell by the look on my face I’m not leaving with Kwame. “Follow me.”
He leads me to a section of the hospital where there are more cots set up because all the beds are full. People of all ages are hooked up to IVs.
“You have chemotherapy drugs?” I ask.
He nods. “Yes, they are in low supply but we hopefully have some more coming in soon. What stage is his cancer?”
I shake my head. “We don’t know, we have only very crude supplies, and one small X-ray machine.”
He looks at a nurse in dark-green scrubs. “Get him to MRI.” He points at Kwame.
She looks stressed and flicks her gaze to me, then back to him. “Doctor, MRI line very long.”
I put my hand on Dr. Smith’s arm. “It’s okay, let the other patients have their turn, but try to get him in soon.”
He looks at the nurse. “Go find out how long, please.”
She nods and leaves.
The doctor finds a pole and hangs Kwame’s IV on it, and then instructs another nurse to get him some painkillers. They can’t administer the chemo until they know how much to give.
I thank the villagers and ask them to go wait in the van. I turn to Dr. Smith. “Can you take my cell phone number and update me?”
“Sure,” he says, pulling out his phone and handing it to me. I put in my name and contact number and hand it back.
“So are you a doctor, or a volunteer, or what?”
“I’m actually a DPT, but not doing much physical therapy over here. I’ve been doing more first aid—casts, taking care of the sick kids, that kind of stuff. Whatever I can do.”
“I’m sorry, I should have addressed you properly earlier,” he says.
“No, it’s okay. My DPT expired and I don’t... have it back yet,” I say vaguely.
An alarm beeps loudly through the loudspeakers. Someone shouts, “Code blue, room eighteen!”
