The story continues...

The Richard update: as you all know, Richard was admitted on Monday night. We did ultimately stabilize him that night, but I was initially worried that Richard would never make a full recovery, that, for whatever reason, he suffered brain damage during this whole process. Yesterday, I saw the first hopeful signs that this might not be the case; it was then that he followed a light, and even appeared to smile. It is only today, though, that I am convinced that he is cured. He smiled, he looked like a normal child. One might describe this as a miracle, but the word miracle implies that his cure was an inexplicable event. No, his cure was anything but inexplicable. His cure occurred as a direct result of the heroic efforts of the doctors and nurses here at the clinic.

I cannot fully explain why he was so neurologically depressed for so long after the resuscitation that night. Perhaps he was just so sick that it took him longer to recover. Perhaps he had meningitis in addition to the pneumonia and diarrhea, and that the daily Ceftriaxone injections ultimately cured him. We will never know, and, frankly, who cares? The only relevant point is that he is better.

I show you below two pictures of Richard as he was this morning when we did hospital rounds. He looks like a normal child; a normal and beautiful child.