In the middle of a fierce game of Goats and Tigers, the version of tag played
in India, a tiny but
enthusiastically growling “tiger” suddenly slowed,
dropped to his knees, and struggled to catch his
breath.
Gina Pestak ’08 –
despite her premed studies and all that she had learned in her two
weeks as a
volunteer at the Sivananda Rehabilitation Home in Hyderabad, India – made
the
wrong diagnosis.
While the other children watched 5-year-old Sunnat with only mild
concern, Gina raced to the medical
office to search Sunnat’s medications for an
inhaler, sure that he was having an asthma attack. There
was no inhaler. She
ran back outside to find Sunnat still panting in the dust and shouted for the
children
to find the nurse. They looked at her, puzzled. “Akka [big sister], why?”
one of them finally ventured.
Then Gina heard Sunnat cough and realized her error. This
was the deep, heavy cough of someone
with tuberculosis, which
Sunnat – as well as many of the center’s 30 other orphans who were
infected by HIV/AIDS – had previously suffered as an opportunistic
infection. He was so vigorous,
such a splendid tiger, that she had
momentarily forgotten how sick he was.
She cried as she held Sunnat and later wrote in her travel blog, “The children knew all along.
For them, this is how things are. Their
friends collapse in fits of coughing, and no one flinches…But
I don’t
think for as long as I live, I will ever forget the sound of that cough –
shattering my comfort,
and breaking my heart.” |