Josalin

The youngest and most recent addition to the Casa Corazón family passed away at the hospital yesterday morning. Josalin came to the casa on January 18th. He mother had gone into the hospital very ill and took Josalin with her because there was no one to leave her with. Her mother died in the hospital a couple of days before Josalin came here. The doctors asked us to take her in and she came to live here. She was very weak and ill for about two weeks and the doctors decided to re-admit her into the hospital. Miriam, one of the workers here, spent every day, 7 days a week, 12 hours a day with her and the other workers alternated nights staying with her. In Honduras, the hospital nurses only give medications and the family is responsible for all other care for the patient such as feeding, cleaning, etc. Josalin was very weak and could not breath on her own and eventually lost her struggle to live yesterday. Gigo, the casa's driver and handyman, drove the truck to the hospital and picked up her body in a little casket and brought her back to the casa. A service was held here for her with all the kids and workers which lasted about one hour. Then the older kids went in the van following the truck carrying her body to the cemetary about a half hour outside of San Pedro Sula where all the other children from the casa who have died are burried. There was a small service there before Josalin was burried. Everyone was very sad, especially Miriam who spent so much time with this precious little girl.
Josalin is a sad reminder to all of us of the severity of the infection that all of these kids have. She is the first child from this casa to pass away since my Godson Junior died January 28, 2004, over 4 years ago. Unfortunately over 5,800 people die every single day in Africa from AIDS, mostly due to the lack of medications available there. The children here at Casa Corazón are very fortunate to have the medications they need, some provided by the government and others paid for through donations to the casa. These medications have prolonged the lives of all of these kids and makes them seem very healthy, but for the side effects of the medications. Josalin is a sad reminder that AIDS can work very fast to kill a child or anyone and sometimes the medications are not enough once the child is ill. It is a sad reminder to the other 37 children living here of what can happen to them also and how fortunate they are to have Casa Corazón taking care of them. Please pray for the peace and comfort of all the children here who are scared because of this and for Miriam to be comforted in her sadness.