Johnny Fig

Johnny arrived at Danita's Children's Home after a crazy turn of events. During the earthquake, Johnny broke his femur. I don't know the back story enough to know if he had a family or lived on the streets before that. But a piece of the puzzle we did get was that Johnny crawled through the streets of Port au Prince (with a broken femur) for ELEVEN DAYS before a hospital took him in and surgically repaired his injury. Can you even imagine the pain?! He must have been so scared!
When Johnny first arrived at the orphanage, they thought he was supposed to start trying to walk... so everyone was pushing him to try it out a little each day. But after some follow up xrays, the doctors saw that he had plates and pins in his leg to hold his bones back together so he was supposed to stay off it, not putting weight on it, for a good while. Oops.
My team got there after they found out this news, so we all shared the responsibility of carrying Johnny around with us whenever he wanted to try out a new spot of shade or a new group of people. We carried him to & from the bathroom. Carried him to bed. And-- his favorite-- carried him to the cafeteria. He loved it because it was full of long rows of benches he could slide up and down... mobile for him, while still being immobile.
This kid was a handful! Of fun and mischief. He went 100 miles and hour for someone who didn't walk. He was always squirming, moving, playing, talking. I love this kid!
But Johnny needs your prayers! On our last day, I watched as the doctor changed his bandage. His scar ran almost the full length of his little thigh... and looked totally healed except for one nickel sized open wound. Johnny's leg has a secondary infection, the doc told me. I watched as she squeezed out a full tube of puss from his little wound. Now I'm no medical person, but from what I gathered from listening to the nurse & doc confer, this is not good. Well, there is some good news-- Johnny's demeanor and energy were signs that the infection was not affecting his entire body yet. The bad news-- the infection might live, even thrive, on all the metal items that were implanted in his legs... so to fully remove the infection they might have to go back in for another surgery to eliminate the infection "at the root". UGH! The doc said maybe the right antibiotics would kill the infection, but likely he'd have to be treated with another surgery.

Please, please, please... PRAY FOR JOHNNY. Pray that God clears out this infection fully. And pray He does it without putting this boy though another surgery. But if that's the solution He desires, pray God protects Johnny and gives wisdom to his doctors!

Side note: Apparently, they do not know Johnny's last name. So when they were nursing him back to health in PAP, they were feeding him bananas... and he liked them. Like REALLY liked them. Wouldn't stop eating them... so they nicknamed him "Johnny Fig" to give him a new last name (fig is the Haitian word for banana, so I'm told).