When I Die I'm Going to Heaven 'Cause I've Spent My Time in Hell: A Memoir of My Year As an Army Nurse in Vietnam by Barbara Hesselman Kautz

Author:Barbara Hesselman Kautz [Kautz, Barbara Hesselman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: War, Biography, Autobiography, Memoir
Publisher: Piscataqua Press
Published: 2018-05-16T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16.

LE ANH PHUONG

Two young soldiers disposing trash heard a mewling sound coming from the interior of the garbage dump. Figuring a kitten had gotten stuck while foraging, one of the young men reached in to release it. Instead of a furry paw he found a human hand attached to a tiny baby girl. She was scrawny, appeared to be of Afro-Asian descent, and no more than two months old. She was naked, and had a big bump and a scrape on the top of her head.

One of the men hastily removed his fatigue shirt and wrapped the baby in it. Back at their Company they quickly swapped the shirt for a blanket and, commandeering a jeep, roared across Long Binh Post with the baby in her rescuer’s arms.

“What’s her name?” the admissions clerk asked when they carried her inside.

“Hell if we know. Looks like her mother didn’t want her anymore and didn’t want anyone to know about it.” Vietnamese orphanages were filled with children fathered by American men; many of whom were African-American. The Vietnamese were especially prejudiced against children of mixed racial heritage when the father was black. Dumping unwanted children in orphanages was common practice.

Well,” the clerk snorted. “I hate admitting her as unknown Vietnamese female infant. She needs a name.”

He thought for a moment before combining three Vietnamese names that sounded as though the owner might be a pretty Vietnamese—or American girl. “I know,” he pronounced. “Let’s call her Le Anh Phuong.”

Nga laughed when she heard the name. “That’s a man’s name,” she cried with glee. “You should change it.”

But this required more paperwork than the admitting clerk wanted to do. “I named her; it sounds like a girl’s name to me,” he defended. “Let’s keep it.”

Someone dug a bassinet out of storage—who knows why we had one in the first place, scrounged some diapers—who knows from where, bathed Le Anh, found some swaddling blankets, bandaged her head, lay her gently in the crib, and transferred her to Ward 5.

Fortunately, Le Anh seemed to have survived her tenure in the garbage dump without serious injury. She had no other bruises except the one on her head, and it wasn’t so much a bruise as it was a fluid filled pocket between her brain and her skull where one of her fontanels (soft spot) had yet to close. Bulging fontanels made us pay attention: they indicated increased intracranial pressure, which in turn could lead to brain damage. But fontanels are there for a purpose: to allow room for a child’s brain to grow. That extra space was a blessing for a baby like Le Anh.

What we feared most was infection. An anesthesiologist started an IV in one of her tiny veins. And we hung the first bottle of antibiotic rich fluid she would receive during her stay on Ward 5.

Scientists describe a person whose fluid needs are in balance as being in a state of “homeostasis.” This is ideal for it means a person’s kidneys are functioning properly, and his blood is carrying enough oxygen to his muscles.

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