So today I trade places with Bruce. I went, as we usually do for ½ a day at the AIDS Haven where there are older people (over 18) and children. The children are orphans of AIDS parents. Right now there are approximately 6 infants, 7 or 8 preschoolers, about 5 school age kids and maybe 10 adults, many of whom are hospice patients. The college students often take the nursery kids and the preschoolers to play. Other students were working in the kitchen and in a house on the compound that we are preparing to paint. Each Monday morning there is a little religious service attended by the children and their caregivers. I love the music involved as the children get right into the swing of things and the caregivers are good singers. Even when they sing in Khosa it is great to hear. It would take you back to your Sunday School Days (or Religious Education Days). “Jesus Loves the Little Children”, Jesus Loves Me, This I Know” and one that I didn’t know “Telephone to Jesus, telephone to Jesus, telephone to Jesus everyday” and then all the children say HELLO! I discovered that one of the infants died. She was extremely emaciated and her mom is here as well but appears to be reacting well to antiretroviral drugs.
What I usually do at the AIDS Haven is give hand and arm massages to the adults. Some will have none of it but some find it nice. The object is to soften up hardened tissues, promote circulation and the one that motivates me…the healing powers of touch. I have no thoughts that I am actually “healing” but I hope it is doing the other two and that the patients find it comforting. Today I stopped a room I had not been before. I asked the man if he would like a hand massage…now you have to understand that many of the patients speak minimal English…He appeared to say, “Yes” so I commenced. He was seated on the edge of his bed and I also rubbed his feet as I had too much cream on my gloves. I asked if it hurt and he indicated that it did…His hands were starting to curl…first the little fingers and progressively through the index fingers is common…he had only two fingers involved. He looked at me intently at times and other times stared in a vacant, lost way. It wasn’t until I was doing the hands of his roommate that the first man was blind. I knew that there was a blind patient but I never guessed it was he.
The blind man’s roommate didn’t feel like he would probably be there next week. He was very thin and weak. Bruce and I did actually get to take one patient, Dion, home to his family after his TB was under control and the regime of HIV antiretroviral meds was in place. ND
