I'll never forge the first time I met B (first initials only given in names to protect privacy). The children's cancer ward of Kenyatta hospital is a gated ward, to protect the children from walking outside the ward, where they should not be without the supervision of an adult. As I entered the ward this day, I noticed the gate was uncharacteristically locked. I thought this strange until I heard a scream. As I looked down, there was a girl on the floor. She was sobbing uncontrollably and desperately trying to push herself through the gate. I learned that, as a baby, B had been abandoned by her parents to her grandmother. For twelve years, all this child knew was living with grandmother in a one room hut. Suddenly, and without warning, she was thrust into an environment with many new people, sounds, and smells. Any kind of human contact she was receiving was only with pain. Coupled with the fact that she very abruptly found herself left alone by the one constant, loving, comfortable person in her life (most of the time parents and family are not permitted to stay with their children and can only see them during visiting hours), her little system went into complete and total overload, and she was in full fledged panic. The nurses had tried for several hours to try and calm her, to no avail. In the past, I have been a careworker for adults and children with mental health issues in group home settings, so I had been trained in special restraint techniques that keep myself, the other person, and people around the both of us safe. However, this was several years ago, so there were a couple of factors working against me. First and foremost, a lot of the training I had went out the window. Secondly, as bad as this sounds, I'm not as young as I used to be. My body doesn't move in quite the same way as it used to. However, as I got right down on the floor with her, I found that it didn't even matter, because God had the wheel. Like riding a bicycle, the techniques came as easily to me as if I had just learned them yesterday. I also found the Lord gave me all the strength I needed. I got right down on the floor with her and asked the Lord to give her peace, over and over again. She put up a pretty good fight. As you can see from the picture above, she is tall and very lanky. In fact, she's taller than me! She tried to pull my hair, elbow me in the nose, and scratch me. It didn't matter. Whatever she did, I was right there with her. In about ten minutes, it was like a switch was shut off inside her. She went limp. I was able to hold her and rock her like a little girl. I discovered she could speak English perfectly; no one knew the language she was speaking before. She wasn't speaking KiSwahili, and it didn't seem to be a recognizable tribal language, either. After holding her, rocking her, and letting her cry into my shoulder for a while, I helped her up and we sat together. I gave her a ring I had been wearing, as a memento to remind her of the day the Lord came to help her, and that she could also ask for help from Him at any time and He will be there for her. She has been calm, well behaved, and has even been happy from time to time ever since. Apart from peace for B, one of the best possible outcomes of this situation was the nurses. They had been trying for hours to calm her down, to no avail. They truly were shocked that during my short time with her, she had completely changed for the better. They called me an "angel". I was able to tell them it wasn't me. I simply prayed to God for help, and He listened to me. My prayer is that it at least got the wheels turning for them. "And a child shall lead them,".
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