Ebola Crisis
I chose to write a letter by a patient who had experienced multiple losses from Ebola which has been experienced by numerous individuals during this crisis. This is a man who did not expect to experience this trauma; it swept it one night and altered the entire course of his life and what he knew.
There was fear, as was common, that there would be stigma from the community so he chose to not call the transportation unit and took care of his daughter alongside his wife. He likely was very unaware of the modes of transmission and he and his wife needed to take care of their daughter.
When his wife became ill, and he began to experience early symptoms, it was time to call because there was no other way and no one left to care for them. However, there was the realization that they would be shunned when they returned. Because of the lack of resources, they didn’t receive transportation and their daughter passed away their. Culture was a huge element in his life but this was stripped because of the illness.
During the course of the illness he was often very powerless and, I can imagine, felt very isolated and perhaps not even human. As his body fought the illness, there was nothing left in him to care about the normal things that we usually find ourselves concerned with. He continued to be stripped of his dignity and humanity by the illness physically and emotionally and the ward was depressing and filled with death.
When he began to heal, he began to fully see the things that had been taken away from him. His entire life had changed. Doctors told him he would survive in the face of death but he immediately felt that the illness had taken away everything from him.
He would leave that ward on his feet but he didn’t have his wife and daughter which he had two weeks ago. He didn’t have his village that he’d had two weeks ago. And he’d begun to question his own humanity that he’d felt had been taken from him between that one night and now. Religion and healers are a part of the culture so, rather than resources providing a therapist, he reached out to a pastor who knew him and who he trusted.
Pastor Igonoh,
Help me. I write to you because I am hoping to find my faith again. I’m hoping to find a reason to keep living.
It’s hard to remember the days now, but nights ago my daughter came home with a fever. We didn’t want to believe that she had Ebola because we knew it would be a death sentence. The next morning she got diarrhea and began to vomit; she grew so weak that she couldn’t get off the floor. My wife and I cleaned her and tried to get her to drink fluids.
I was afraid to call the transportation unit for fear that if they came to the village we would be shunned. When my wife began to complain of joint pain and fever we knew she had gotten it too and I knew I would be next. We called the transportation unit and I took care of my daughter and wife who were both to sick to move. I was beginning to feel pains in my body and I felt warmer.
The unit didn’t arrive for hours and after cleaning up my wife, I found my daughter had died. When the unit came I told them I needed my daughter to be buried; I need to let other relatives know but they told me this couldn’t happen. They whisked my wife and I into the van and I saw neighbors looking. I know I can never return to my village; I know what happens to people who somehow don’t die from this illness.
By the time I got to the hospital I had diarrhea, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the vomiting and the pain in my throat. My wife was taken somewhere else and I didn’t have the energy to even ask where they were taking her.
They told me to drink fluids, but I didn’t have the strength. They told me if I didn’t drink fluids that I would die. They also told me where the bathrooms were but the unit was full and the bathrooms didn’t get cleaned.
Some people have a small mattress, others are on the floor. I lost the strength to even move and so I dragged myself when I needed to use the restroom. I had a bedsheet that I had been given by another patient, but it hurt to touch my skin with it. Everything hurt. When I learned that my wife had died, I hurt too much to feel anything.
I am better now. Everyday I wake up and people are dead; sometimes they stay here for a while until someone can come retrieve them. New people replace them and sometimes they die too. It’s ugly. They bleed from their nose and their ears; they moan out in pain. Ebola makes us lose our decency. We’re reduced to nothing.
After the sick nurse who died was taken away the doctor came and told me that I was going to live. I’ve gotten through the worst of the disease but I don’t really believe that. The worst of the disease is that my daughter and wife both died and I wasn’t there to do anything. This disease even took my ability to care when I learned about my wife. The disease took my humanity because I refused to help the woman who cried for help when she couldn’t move to get her water and I was scared to help her.
This disease has taken my home. You know I can’t return to the village. The people will shun me as they have our friends. I have nowhere to go and no one to go with. I hurt in my soul and I hurt in my body. I will live but I’m not sure I have a reason to.
