Clinic Weekend

As usual, we spent the weekend with the Fickers in Canilla and San Andres. Also, as usual, it was awesome. Clinic on Saturday was not terribly unusual, except that we had to inform a pregnant mother that the reason her nearly full-term baby wasn't moving anymore was because it had died. It was quite sad, but she lives close enough that she was able to fetch her husband and her parents so we could explain to them that this was not her fault. Sad, but when presented with news of this sort, people usually look for a reason and we wanted them to know that she had not caused this. Please pray for her and her family.

Yesterday afternoon, Matt went out to the Fickers' airplane hangar, which is still under construction, and helped lift some support beams into place. Keep in mind that this is all done manually, from the roof, and that Matt is pretty afraid of heights since a nasty fall he took in Boy Scouts. No worries, though, he knows that the key to safety is to not fall.

Today in clinic in San Andres, we saw a two month old baby who weighed in at less than 7 lbs and was SEVERELY malnourished. Mom probably only weighs 80 lbs herself and could probably use a good feeding. The baby had one of the worst cases of an oral yeast infection that Leslie has ever seen (and she was a pediatric nurse!). The situation was grave enough with the baby that Leslie told the mother to go get her husband in the market. The Ficker family is actually going to take this family in for a few days and put the baby on a feeding tube. Please pray for this baby, as she is in quite a bit of trouble right now.

Other interesting tidbits from clinic today included a woman who kept spitting on the floor, a couple of surprise pregnancies, and Matt escorting a drunk man out of the room. Not everyone here has gotten the message that drinking is not a recommended activity for Native Americans.

In the good news column, we found out today that the woman that Heidi and Dr. Hoak operated on Friday is recovering well and was sent home today. YAY!

Oh, one more piece of "local flavor". Remember the scene in the movie "Doc Hollywood" when he got paid with a pig? So far, we've been paid with oranges (and we had to tell the patient not to eat too many herself - she had gastritis), apples (twice), tamarind (a kind of fruit), bananas, and as of this weekend, a rooster. The rooster wasn't for us, thank God, but for Leslie. It even came in a handy carrying case. And as Leslie was carrying it out of the room, the woman said, "Canta" (it sings). Excellent news. We'll be sure to put it right outside our bedroom window - where it can join the other six roosters who think that 3am is a perfectly reasonable time to crow.

And in pictures, we have 1) a failed attempt to capture a really awesome sunrise from the "road" between our house and Canilla, 2) a failed attempt to get a kid wearing a "Simpson's" hat in clinic to smile, and 3) a failed attempt to get a good picture of Rachel Ficker riding her horse at the house. Yes, we were 0-3, but they're still better than the pictures we got of the aftermath of Heidi's brother's bike wreck last weekend....