Mother-courage

I have to tell just one story from this morning's hospital rounds. Bed six looked rather crowded--a 13 year old boy, his five year old brother, and perched on the edge their wiry mother. The older boy held his arm at a peculiar angle, and I noticed his elbow was hugely swollen. The younger boy lay across his mom's lap with his equally swollen upper thigh raised in the air, and cried. It seems that a cobra crawled into their shared bed at home in the middle of the night and bit both children. I can barely imagine the terror of being awoken in the pitch dark by the screams of my children, in a house made of mud and thatch, with no lights. But this woman woke up and managed to kill the snake. She described it's characteristic hooding, and compared it's thickness to the metal frame of the bed. And there she sat this morning, with two injured but alive children, waiting for treatment. If only Eve had whacked the head off the snake in the garden, this woman would not have had to be battling for her kids' lives now. But here we are, and I admire her courage.