Baby Tod

"When I first saw little Tod, his brown eyes were deep-set from dehydration. He was limp, but could still wrinkle up his face and make faint crying noises.

The doctor reckoned that the tiny baby would die soon without treatment.  Sullen, listless, vomiting; the infant hadn't urinated in 24 hours.  I felt his warm body and thought, Lord, surely you won't let this precious little life slip away!

I held Tod while the nurse prepared a rehydration solution and gave it to him through a syringe.  We prayed with Tomiena Micky, Tod's 19-year-old mother.  She watched the doctor with intense and trusting eyes, but he was none too confident.  Tod was not taking enough liquid.  In just a few hours, he had drifted into semi-consciousness. The doctor could hear liquid in his left lung.  "He's slipping away," he said.  "He could die within a few hours."

I radioed the ship to prepare and I.V. solution which the doctor would inject directly into Tod's bone marrow--his veins had already collapsed.  Halfway through the transmission, the battery in my hand-held radio died.

We then approached a group of men who were carving a long, graceful canoe from a breadfruit log.  The carver summoned two boys, who launched an 18-foot dugout canoe and paddled us out through the lagoon to the ship.  The whole process took about 20 minutes, but it seemed like a lifetime.

The crew had most of the supplies ready.  We completed the I.V. kit and rushed back to shore.  Then a miracle happened . . .

When we arrived at the clinic, Tod was taking liquid and holding it down!  He was crying more rigorously, and his left lung sounded better.  He still had a long way to go, but the crisis had passed.

Exactly two years later, I returned to Baby Tod's island, not knowing what I would find.  I was both surprised and delighted to find that Tod had fully recovered and was now a healthy toddler.

How grateful I was to be able to come back and visit a healthy little boy and not a tiny white gravestone.

Jamie Spence

Founder/Executive Director

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