CAMAGÜEY.- David looks a lot like his namesake, the Israeli king. At only 10 years old, he has had to face a giant that triples him in stature and with no more depth than courage and love. Until then he did not know other battles other than those of little plastic swords, nor of other pains besides the tiredness from playing with his neighborhood friends. Now, from the Intensive Care Unit of the Eduardo Agramonte Piña Pediatric Hospital, the boy has a little trouble smiling, although he tries with all his might.

One of the warriors who saved his life caresses his head with fine and messy hair to calm him down. She is Dr. Yudilién Quintana García, who has been another mother for him these days. Her professionalism does not allow her to forget a detail of David's evolution, but in her sensitive eyes you can see that the boys and girls there are not a bed number or a disease, but little people for whom you have to give everything .

“David arrived at Intensive Care with severe dengue. He presented manifestations of shock: blood pressure levels below those appropriate for his age, high heart rate and a tendency to remain asleep. He had shown acute febrile syndrome but upon entering this room, the fever had disappeared 48 hours ago, something common in dengue patients, who experience alarm signs with the fall of fever. But despite the protocol used, David's evolution was not as expected.

By that time, Jany Céspedes Aguado had no prayer left to turn to. She prayed to her God with all the words she could bear to think and all the weight of the world on her mother's back. She prayed that her child would go back to being the same happy and playful little boy from before, surrounded by friends and loved ones.

"I had a lot of faith," she tells me, "I always knew they were going to save him, and I know that David is going to get out of here, alive."

The gratitude towards the doctor, the nurse and the entire medical team crystallizes her gaze, while her son does not miss a step or step on his mother and listens carefully to the interview. She doesn't stop watching him for a second and although you can guess her thoughts, being in her shoes is the only way to know everything that breaks in the heart of a mother with a sick child.

While the protector returns to David, his doctor continues recounting the evolution of the infant:

“David needed the assistance of several medical specialties, since he had a condition in his myocardium that required support with amines. During the first 24 hours in Intensive Care, he remained stable but then another complication appeared, for which it was necessary to resort to mechanical ventilation: attaching the child to artificial ventilation equipment. There were several difficult days, in which we were by his side minute by minute; he had multiple organ failure, including respiratory, cardiovascular, hematologic, digestive, and renal.”

Thanks to medical strategies, David began to show, after five days, signs of recovery: platelets reached normal values, cardiovascular function allowed to stop the amine booster, and from the respiratory point of view he also presented a favorable evolution. David, at the time of the interview, was already reported for care and they had to transfer him to intermediate therapy.

The story of the little boy may seem everyday in a Cuban Pediatric Hospital, but the magnitude of his severity had not been seen there in a patient with dengue, during the last few months. For this reason, Yudilién constantly repeats the need to prevent this disease and once there are symptoms, she insists on not trusting and going to medical services.

Friends from so many adventures and games call him to see how he is doing, that wakes him up and helps him keep fighting. His savior angel, in a green robe, tickles him to make him laugh. Then he smiles and the air becomes lighter. He then looks into the camera and gives a thumbs up as a sign of victory and a way of telling the world that once again David defeated Goliath.