Of our very un-Vincentian, and now one year old rash-battling daughter

As some of you have guessed - in the case of lacking blog updates no news really is good news. At least partly. I've been busy. Too busy to bother with the blog. But the last few weeks we have also been worrying about Ella and paid 6 visits to doctors. I'll give you an update on the fieldwork soon, but I need to write about Ella first, she is after all much more important than the fieldwork.

About four weeks ago we noticed a rash on Ella's left forearm. Figuring it was eczema, something I was bothered with a lot when I was younger, we didn't think too much of it. When it only got worse, however, we headed over to the health center here in Mespo, where a nurse advised us to see a doctor. She gave us a referral to the one at the Richland Park clinic (there is no resident doctor in Mespo) and we went to see him the next day. Richland Park is, according to one of my informants, the largest village on the island, and the home of about 2000 of the 8000 residents in the Marriaqua valley. It seemed as if a fair number of them were at the clinic that day and we braced ourselves as we entered the waiting room, yet we didn't have to wait for long. The flip side of that coin was that the doctor - a Cuban man I believe, didn't see us for long either. He asked a couple of questions, inspected Ella briefly, gave us a prescription for hydrocortisone cream and we were on our way out.

We used the cream for a few days but saw no sign of improvement so Silje took Ella to the health center in Mespo again and this time there was a doctor present at the clinic there. He gave us a new prescription, for Fucidin, and we used that for a couple of days, still seeing no sign of improvement. On the contrary, the rash seemed to be spreading to her shoulder, chest and right arm. Remembering stories of agressive flesh-eating bacteria, we went to see the Mespo doctor again and had to wait for nearly three hours only to get a referral to a third doctor - a pediatrician and a dear friend of his. Dr. Datta is a small, Indian lady, working at a private clinic in Kingstown. She was very thorough, asking for a lot of background information, before carefully studying the rashes and giving Ella a prescription for systemic antibiotics as well as an anti-fungal liquid. (Happily, Ella loved the medicines and would look at us with anticipation when we went to get them in the fridge).

Yet, when after 36 hours Datta's medicines still did not seem to have an effect we began to freak out just a tiny bit. After all, these were some nasty looking rashes. We freaked out enough, anyway, that I called my cousin Eline in Norway- a doctor educated in Australia who has served with Médecins sans Frontières, working with malnourished children in Burkina Faso. Although it was hard for her to do a diagnosis based on what I told her and the pictures I e-mailed, what she said made us feel more confident that Datta had all bases covered. And sure enough, the next day the rashes began to fade and by the end of the cure they were all gone. Datta gave us the thumbs up on the follow-up appointment.


A digression: the phrase "un-Vincentian daughter" used in the title is a reference, among other things, to Ella's waiting room behavior. Vincentian kids are extremely well behaved in settings such as these. That is, they tend to sit still in a lap, however long it takes. Ella, on the other hand, is a whirlwind. She is here, there and everywhere, doing all those things Vincentian kids get raps on their fingers for, like picking up pebbles and rocks and sitting down in the dirt (the waiting room in Mespo is actually outside). Vincentian mothers, on their part, are not afraid to reprimand us, or more likely Silje, sternly when Ella is doing something along this line. "Dirty, dirty, dirty", they will say, or "Baby hands dirty!". And to digress even more, they are also very concerned about not letting their children get wet. At the slightest sign of rain they will seek shelter. We, on the other hand are, in their eyes, clearly not sufficiently concerned about avoiding rain. "The baby mustn't get wet!", they will say. Or "Get the baby out of the rain!".

Back to irritated skin. For a week or so, Ella seemed to be all fine again, but then, after a visit to the beach on her birthday (wohoo!!), we noted a new angry-looking rash, this time on her private parts. We paid Dr. Datta another visit today and she needed only a glance to establish that we, as expected were dealing with a fungal infection. So Ella is back on medicines, which for her at any rate is a treat, and we are wondering whether we should stay clear of the beach - one of the few places of recreation we have.


To round things off, Ella Leona's birthday, despite of the fungal aftermath, was a happy day. I took the day off and we paid a visit to the botanical garden in Kingstown before heading to the beach. We had dinner at the French Verandah, a semi-classy and touristy place in Villa, before buying a cake at a bakery which we took home and adorned with candles and Norwegian flags, (sent us from Ella's grandparents in Asker) and letting Ella lose on it. Aparently she likes chocolate cake. Today she pointed enthusiastically at the cakes in the counter at the supermarket.