Surviving Ebola - Washington Post

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Ebola Survivor Corps

SURVIVING EBOLA
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Caring for children
Decontee Davis: She won her battle with Ebola. Her 5-year-old son, though, paid a price. She didn’t want other kids to suffer the same way, so she embarked on a difficult new job.

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CARING FOR CHILDREN
Decontee Davis, 23, works at a child-care center, a two-story concrete building behind a tall iron gate in Monrovia. Children played inside and out on a recent sunny afternoon. Others watched television. The hubbub would sound normal anywhere in the world.

But any of these 13 children could be coming down with Ebola. All are from homes where parents or guardians have been taken away to treatment centers or died of Ebola. Now the youngsters must be monitored for 21 days, to determine whether they are infected as well.

The job falls to a staff of 10, all survivors of Ebola like Davis, who watch them 24 hours a day.

Davis was a part-time student and a single mother with a 5-year-old son when she came down with Ebola in early August, after bathing an aunt who had the disease. Her family took her to the ELWA 2 Ebola treatment center in Monrovia. Her fiancee was also admitted.

Days of hell ensued. Davis lost her eyesight and became too weak to move. She had constant diarrhea. She could not hold down any fluids, which are critical to surviving the disease. A doctor “would hold a bottle to my mouth,” she said. “I would drink it. As soon as it enter my system, I would vomit it out.”

Davis’s fiance died. A woman perished in front of her. Terrified, Davis called her father. To calm her, he read her scripture over the phone.

One day, she felt well enough to ask for a toothbrush. Soon, she was able to clean herself.

“I had the strength to take my own water and carry it to the bathroom. I had the strength to wake up from my bed and brush my own teeth. So these are things that gave me courage. I thought ‘Yes … I am responding to treatment,’ ” she said.

She was discharged Sept. 1. Only then did she learn what had been happening at home in Mount Barclay, a small town northeast of Monrovia.

“My son could not play in the community. Everybody was afraid of him, saying his mother have Ebola … no one wanted him to infect them with that virus,” she said. Davis’s mother couldn’t buy food in the market. Friends had to bring her rice and cooking oil.

Davis decided she had to take care of children exposed to Ebola. “I make the decision from what happened to my family. I don’t want that to be repeated in other kids’ lives.

“My son had Grandmother to care for him in my absence. They may not have other people to care for them. So things will be worse for them. They may not have food to eat in the community,” she said.

Davis, like other survivors, also donated blood in hopes of helping other Ebola victims — although research on the effectiveness of such transfusions is inconclusive.

Davis’s new job can be emotionally draining. Six of the children in her care have developed Ebola symptoms. So far, she knows of one who has survived, she said. Davis prays for the strength to tend to the children.

“I will ask God to give me passion to love them like my own,” she said.

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Design and development by Shelly Tan.

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OleLadySquawking
10:53 AM EST
It's funny, and sad, to think that the same ignorance, suspicion and fear about a disease can spread as fast in a literate, rich country as it can in the most illiterate, poorest countries.
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OldProgessivefromWisconsin
6:45 AM EST
I hope all of the survivors, who now have immunity to the disease, are hired at a living wage or better to work on the front lines. They have a valuable advantage over everyone else. Caring for orphaned children and those in quarantine, Working the ambulances and wards, Cleaning up contaminated homes, and, yes, even burying ebola victims. The guaranteed jobs at good pay could help them to get back on their feet and back to a normal life and at the same time prevent further spread of the dread disease.
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OldProgessivefromWisconsin
6:47 AM EST
Once they have a good income, it won't be long before family and friends stop avoiding them and persecuting them.
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shorebird234
12/7/2014 7:11 AM EST
Seems like Republicans/fright-wingers have grown strangely silent about the Ebola "scare" they tried to use as one more battering ram against President Obama. Why? Because it is another great success story of his, not a failure. This happens numerous times with them - the ACA being another great example with all of its successes.
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plannedevents
12/6/2014 11:06 PM EST
About the suspicions some residents have about Ebola - it coming from Westerners, etc. -- Let us not snicker at their ideas. It is only a few generations ago that people thought you could 'catch' cancers.
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beans and rice
12/6/2014 8:40 PM EST
Good article. Thought provoking for sure.
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StBob
12/6/2014 5:39 PM EST
"surviving Ebola should provide a time for unsurpassed joy."

I struggle to remember a stupider headline in a quality newspaper. Why would they be out celebrating when many for their friends and family didn't? Why would they be dancing for joy when people are still dying? Having been through a near death illness I can say the overriding feeling afterwards is of fear at how fragile one's life really is.
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reussere
12/6/2014 6:25 PM EST [Edited]
You might note that everyone reacts differently to a near death experience. It is the height of hubris and narcissism to believe that your reaction is the only one possible, or even the healthiest or most common.

I can say this as both a cancer survivor and near fatal heart attack survivor.
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Gravitational Certainty
12/6/2014 6:38 PM EST
Bravo!
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Civility118
12/6/2014 8:41 PM EST
@StBob - I agree with you. Anyone who has been keeping up with this catastrophe understands that most survivors over there has lost loved ones and descended into deeper poverty, which is barely imaginable.
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KirbyGalveston
12/6/2014 5:30 PM EST
2,039 new cases in the last 21 days in Guinea(306), Liberia(278) and Sierra Leone(1455),
with close to 100 per day, it's still not really 'under control'
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KirbyGalveston
12/6/2014 5:25 PM EST
3 Dec 2014 WHO sit report
A total of 17 145 confirmed, probable, and suspected cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) have been reported in five affected countries (Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone, and the United States of America) and three previously affected countries (Nigeria, Senegal and Spain) up to the end of 30 November. There have been 6070 reported deaths. Reported case incidence is slightly increasing in Guinea (77 confirmed cases reported in the week to 30 November), stable or declining in Liberia (43 new confirmed cases in the 5 days to 28 November), and is still rising in Sierra Leone (537 new confirmed cases in the week to 30 November). The case fatality rate across the three most-affected countries in all cases with a recorded definitive outcome is 72%; in hospitalized patients the case fatality rate is 60%.
Health-care workers
A total of 622 health-care workers (HCWs) are known to have been infected with EVD up to the end of 30 November, 346 of whom have died
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ShaneinCa
12/6/2014 5:10 PM EST
These stories are amazing and transcendent. Thank you for covering this important aspect of the epidemic.
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