Down The Hall in The Isolation Room

Down the hall, there are 3 babies in isolation because they have retroviruses. They sleep in those infamous iron cribs from the communist period. 




Mirabella is 3 months old & has Down Syndrome. She has a family, or so they say, & was brought here because her family's village house is so cold, they feared for her life. There are some doubts about whether her family will come back to get her. Hospital rules here dictate that mothers must stay in- hospital with their sick kids, in the same bed, throughout the hospitalization, so the fact that Mirabella's mother has not been here is notable. Her droopy eye is a birth defect. Her hands are like starfish & she loves to hold up her hand & gaze at her nails, as if assessing a fresh manicure. She's a serious, fast, noisy eater. If you hold her against you, she'll fall asleep -- a soft, warm puddle of baby. 



Little Mouse weighed 1.2 pounds at birth. Now he is 3 months old & weighs 4 pounds. He has serious heart defects. His fanny & legs are streaked dark blue, due to circulatory problems. He likes people to talk to him. He watches who comes & who goes. His family, too, is in absentia. 



Marius is dying. He's 10 months old, with profound, multiple birth defects. He cannot see & does not respond to sound or touch. He's scary-delicate, & scary because you can see the angel of death hovering over him, but we pick him up & pace the room with him, whispering to him. Even in the face of inevitability, people press on, as if. 



-- la reverdere