A Minor Accident

Tonight Janis and David hosted a nice dinner for all of us who live on the Lighthouse property as well as the managing staff and Dr. Neil, who is the Chairman of the Lighthouse Board. After dinner when I was helping Janis clean up, someone called me to come quickly into the toddler room. Someone had fallen and was bleeding.

It turned out that Gomotsegang, who is 2 1/2 but developmentally delayed because of her frequent AIDS-related illnesses, had managed to climb out of her crib and fall flat on her face. When I got there, she was screaming and blood was streaming out of her nose. I quickly grabbed the box of tissues and tried to lightly pinch her nose, but she cried even harder and waved her head around to get my hand away.

Plan B was to throw a towel over my shoulder and hold her and rub her back so that she would calm down. I was able to dab at her nose with the tissues to keep the blood from running down into her mouth. The bleeding slowed down when she stopped crying so hard, but she would occasionally start wailing again, and I'd have to go through several tissues to get the bleeding to stop again.

I walked around the bathing area with Gomotsegang and our box of tissues for over an hour until finally she had calmed down enough that Mama Shirley and I were able to put her in her crib to sleep.

I felt so bad for Gomotsegang. She obviously injured her nose and also looked like she was going to develop a nasty bruise on her forehead. This poor girl has already been through so much battling AIDS and tuberculosis and lots of other related illnesses. Please pray for her quick healing and also that her nose will not start bleeding again during the night.