Curing fatal hepatitis

Although we are reading about all those pseudoscientific studies that prayer either does or doesn't work (you know, the ones that assume that no one was praying for the control groups...hello...how could you presume that?) in the meanwhile, John Paul the Great was reported to be involved in this case of recovery from an unspecified liver infection...

Medically, it will probably be decided it was "spontaneous"...

Ah, but I have my own miracle story about hepatitis to tell...

when I was in Africa, we didn't have much to treat hepatitis...heck, we didn't even have a blood test to tell if it was hepatitis A, B, C,D, E, F, or G, or due to other infections...indeed, many probably were either toxic hepatitis, or complicated by toxic herbs given to cure people before they came in.

One day, a young boy arrived from Chibi...the roads to the nearest hospital had been landmined and closed, so it meant the family carried him on several buses for about 100 miles to get medical help.

He was about 13, and in a coma. Examination showed a deeply jaundiced boy poorly responsive to pain, and his total bilirubin was 30...full hepatic coma. He had been sick for a week.

About the only treatment for this back then was IV fluids for hydration, IV glucose and vitamins IV....which we did...
Two days later, he was still in a coma, and I told the family that chances of recovery were slim...

Now, I'm from the Mr. Spock theory of miracles...there is a famous StarTrek episode where the emotionless Mr. Spock illogically burned all the fuel from the transporter in a last ditch attempt to alert the Enterprize that they were there...when confronted with this illogical deed, Mr. Spock said, well all the logical things had been done, so I calculated that it was time to do something illogical...

Well, I pray but don't expect miracles...or rather, I figure that God expects us to help him with these things by giving us penicillin and neurosurgeons...but sometimes when nothing else works, then let's get a prayer service and see if the Big guy will work outside of the system...

Now, our area was largely Christian, but Chibi was mainly traditional religion...but after the much more pious nurses talked with them, the family agreed to have him baptized and hold a prayer service...

To my astonishment, the kid woke up the next day...

Wonder how I could write that one up for the New England Journal of medicine: Spontaneous remission of hepatic coma by headwashing?

Naah...just a coincidence....