Of Mice and Misfortune

Yesterday, I returned to my room to find a mouse in my bed. 

It was still alive, and I wasn't in my bed, which are both good things, although at the time, I wasn't very comforted. You see, that same mouse had already caused me quite a bit of grief two hours earlier, when I awoke to a rustle in my curtains and saw two eyes staring back at me.

Like a sensible person fully aware of the size discrepancy between me and the mouse, I stayed in my room just long enough to take a photo before bolting down to the lobby until the rest of my team woke up. I really thought I had given the mouse enough time to get out of my room, but the long tail that I saw disappear under my sheets proved me wrong.

I told the front desk, who sent someone back with me, equipped with only his bare hands. When he spotted the mouse, he made the situation so much more comforting by exclaiming, "Oh! A rat!" He grabbed a thin metal pole, and I almost stopped watching out of fear that he was going to skewer the poor creature alive, but I think he meant to use it like a shepherd's crook to herd the mouse into the hallway so it could terrify someone else. I left to go to the hospital before he was successful, deciding that it wasn't worth the risk of re-entering my room to get my toothbrush or deodorant (sorry, team). 

When we returned, I asked the front desk if the issue had been resolved, and the response I got was, "I'm not sure- why don't you go check?", because that's what every person who's afraid of mice wants to hear. This time, I didn't go alone. My teammates soon discovered the poor little mouse, lying dead in the corner of my room. The front desk sent someone to wrap it up in a tissue and take it away, ending the mouse's reign in room 214. 

I've realized that even though I consider myself an adventurous traveler, I still continue to be bothered by things like not being able to find any toilet paper in Biratnagar, or having to take cold showers, or finding mice in my bed. While many of these are legitimate reasons to be uncomfortable, it frustrates me how little annoyances like this can affect my trip.

When I compare those annoyances to the problems people face here, it's almost embarrassing how easy it is to get caught up in the little things that differ between here and the States. It shouldn't bother me that ice cream tastes different, or that I have to bargain for taxi fares, or that the 1 on Nepalese rupees looks like a 9 and throws me off every time.

Instead, it should bother me that NICU's here are overcrowded, understaffed, and not able to save lives that could easily be saved in the US.

It should bother me that these hospitals have broken lifesaving equipment that no one knows how to repair.

It should bother me hospitals have to refuse treatment for sick babies because their parents cannot afford to pay.

It should bother me that  90% of babies born 12 weeks too early in countries like Nepal will not make it, while 90% of those babies born in the US will survive.

It's not just important that these things bother me more than my own inconveniences. What is especially important is letting that blatant injustice guide me to action, rather than despair.

To say that it's hard to show up to the NICU each morning is an understatement. I've joked before about wanting to take all the babies home with me, but in all seriousness, there are countless times each day where I wish that I could just whisk the sickest of babies off to Hopkins to receive the simple lifesaving interventions they need. I want to hold the babies that have been crying with no one in the ward to hear them. I want to be able to get these hospitals the equipment they need, without their funding being lost to bureaucratic inefficiencies. The worst part is that I can't do any of these things, because I'm an engineer, not a physician or a policymaker or a magician.

At the same time, I try to remind myself that I'm an engineer, and there's a lot of power in that. I have the unique ability to understand machines and the people who use them. I can design solutions that others haven't thought of. I can use technology in creative ways to help solve problems that seem larger, such as understaffing and detection of newborn danger signs, through a user-friendly vital signs monitor. As we learned from the Saving Lives at Birth conference, my team and I are working in a field with others who are just as passionate about saving babies in a way that is realistic and sustainable.

I'm still wrestling with how to process all the problems I've seen here; problems that are far worse than the silly little things I worry about when I travel. I'm working on fighting the two most natural responses, ignorance and despair, and instead turning what I've seen into fuel that will keep me going throughout the frustrations and uncertainties that will inevitably be a part of this project. Engineers have already done amazing things in this field, like creating low-cost respiratory support systems and figuring out how to keep babies warm during transport. Still, the problems that remain show that there is a lot of work left to be done. It's time to start doing my part.