confessions of a medical mom

Luke is spending his fifth day of fever and confinement in the school infirmary . . . I've tried to be confidential, but someone wrote they heard about it on facebook, so I guess it's public knowledge.  His school has been hit with a massive epidemic of flu.  Yes, the dreaded disease.  Extremely contagious, and nasty to live through, but as the wave crashes through it seems to be a relatively mild strain, in that there are no serious complications or deaths.  When H1N1 began to spread, the anticipated mortality rate was 1 to 2 %.  Sounds low, until you have nearly a hundred kids sick in a boarding school.  If one or two die, at our school or others, it would send shock waves for sure, but so far in the schools that have been hit here in Africa, the kids have recovered well.  We think we're probably seeing a similar epidemic of fevers and respiratory viral symptoms here in Bundi, just treated one of Luke's friends whose symptoms are similar.  So I confess I've been challenged to have faith, felt sad that my own child is suffering far from home, second-guessed alternative diagnoses lest we miss something serious and treatable in those 103 degree fevers, and prayed.  And wondered over the irony of caring for other peoples' kids instead of my own, as I've seen patients all week.  And chalked up another God's-plan-not-mine-episode, living through a week of transition and challenge and crisis while my heart is occupied with a distant case of flu.