Dispatches From the Edge_ A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival - Anderson Cooper [37]
The “milk” is a nutritional supplement created for severe malnutrition. It is filled with vitamins, Dr. Tectonidis says, the result of thirty years of research into the science of starvation.
“Before, we would stuff them with food, and half would die,” Dr. Tectonidis says. “We learned they have to go slow in the beginning, if they’re a severe case. Don’t give them iron in the beginning. Don’t give them too much food. All these things were learned by trial and error.”
He holds a cup of the milk formula to Aminu’s lips, and the boy drinks it eagerly.
“What a life,” the doctor says, his face just a few inches from Aminu’s. “What a life, eh, bambino?”
A few beds down from Aminu is Habu. He’s ten months old and close to death. Even I can see that. His eyes are unfocused, his chest rattles as it rapidly rises and falls. I can actually see the outlines of his heart beating beneath his paper-thin skin.
“He did well for a couple of days, but then on the twenty-third he crashed,” Dr. Tectonidis says, showing me Habu’s chart. “He was admitted on the nineteenth of July. He got an infection. Today is the thirtieth, and he’s worse than when he came in.”
Habu’s mother says nothing. She sits staring off into the empty space between Dr. Tectonidis and me.
“Will he make it?” I ask.
The doctor doesn’t answer.
Here they treat the worst cases first. That’s what TV wants as well. The illest, the greatest in need. It’s a sad selection process that happens in your head.
“That child’s bad, but I think we can find worse,” I say to myself, deciding whose suffering merits time on TV. You tell yourself it’s okay, that your motives are good—at the moment you might even believe it. But later, alone, lying in bed, you go over the day and feel like a fraud. Each child’s story is worthy of telling. There shouldn’t be a sliding scale of death. The weight of it is crushing.
They die, I live. It’s such a thin line to cross. Money makes the difference. If you have it, you can always survive, always find a place to stay, something to eat. For the first few days in Maradi, I’m not even hungry. It’s not just the heat, the dust. I’ve become disgusted with myself. My body fat, my health, my minor aches and pains. I brought with me a bagful of food—cans of tuna and Power Bars—but the thought of eating anything makes me want to throw up. That changes, of course. After a couple days I forget why I’m depriving myself.
They die, I live. It’s the way of the world, the way it’s always been. I used to think that some good would come of my stories, that someone might be moved to act because of what I’d reported. I’m not sure I believe that anymore. One place improves, another falls apart. The map keeps changing; it’s impossible to keep up. No matter how well I write, how truthful my tales, I can’t do anything to save the lives of the children here, now.
THE NEXT MORNING when we come back to the intensive care ward, Habu’s bed is empty. It’s been some fifteen hours since we first met him. His mother is nowhere to be seen.
I find Dr. Tectonidis and ask him what happened. He doesn’t remember who Habu is, but when I show him the empty bed, he checks the chart.
“He died this morning,” he says, reading the nurse’s notes. “They transfused him, but he was probably infected with something. They often come with malaria and bacterial infection. I knew yesterday he wouldn’t make it. We tried. I gave him the blood—that was the one chance he had. And he made it through the night, but gave up.”
Overall, only about 5 percent of the children the doctors treat here end up dying, but in the intensive care ward, there are two or three a day.
“There are some surprises,” Dr. Tectonidis says. “Those are harder because we’re a bit upset when it happens. But most of them we can tell. Then there are the miracles. We think they’re going to go, and they make it. The worst ones are the