Today was another day in clinic, and an overall good one, but with not many terribly interesting patient stories to share. (How could we hope to manage anything good enough to follow-up our football-sized back tumor with, though, really?) I guess we should really thank and praise God for no major catastrophes or new diagnoses today!
Thought we'd take the opportunity, though, to answer some questions people have been asking...
The biggest one is almost always, "What can we do?" or "What do you need?"-- Last time we posted a list of stuff the hospital needed to try to answer this, but apparently, no one seemed to have many EKG machines or dopplers just laying around that they wanted to send down... So consider this the newer, more user-friendly list of things that you might not think of, but that we can use to help plenty of individuals at a less "institutional" level:
One is, you know that drawer full of tiny soaps, lotions, sewing kits and shower caps that you have collected from different hotels over the years? Well, we don't have much use for shower caps or sewing kits, but the bars of soap and lotions/moisturizers can come in quite handy. Many people here use laundry detergent to wash their baby's skin, which tends to lead to a lot of eczema and other skin problems. Telling them to go out and buy "skin soap" is one thing, but we've found that actually handing them a sample serves as a helpful reminder to do so! Ditto with the lotions.
The second one has to do with how many pairs of sunglasses you also might have hanging out in drawers, garages, cars, etc... There are a LOT of eye problems down here, from overgrowth of irritating tissue (pterygium) to very bad cataracts, even in quite young people. The biggest reason, most people agree, is the lack of use of UV protection-- especially this close to the equator, and at higher elevations to boot! We're trying to encourage the wearing of sunglasses, but this again requires people to go out and buy something... unless we hand them a pair along with the recommendation. It remains to be seen, of course, if we can really get the idea to catch on-- but as with everything else, we can only try our best.
If you have any of these things that you would like to help us out with, or any adult or children's vitamins or cough and cold products that you found on sale and couldn't resist buying just in case any Guatemalan missionaries ever asked you for any... Well, we'd love to collect them, of course. (If you're really interested in more information on that kind of stuff, we have a list in Word format that we can forward of the meds we can most use-- just let us know!) The best way is probably just to get them to our any of our parents so we can pick them up over Christmas when we're in the States.
OR, if that's not the easiest thing for you, I'll go ahead and answer the second question, which we haven't addressed in a while... "What's the best way to send you guys stuff?" We do now have a P.O. Box here in Guatemala, which hopefully is a little more secure than our mail having to go through the hospital as before. We are told that boxes are "iffy" and might be opened, but for some reason, just about anything in a manilla envelope seems to get through okay. Please do not try to question the logic of that-- it will most assuredly lead to undue frustration, as does trying to ascertain the logic behind many things Guatemalan, as we are slowly learning!
Anyway, our address here is:
Apartado Postal #27
Santa Cruz del Quiche, Guatemala, CA
14001 Codigo de Area
Things have taken, on average, about 7 days to get here. The other option is to send stuff to the mission group in Houston-- at P.O. Box 230, Porter TX 77365-- for us to pick up when we're in the area, or for them to hand-carry down when they come. Trips are getting fewer and farther between after this month, though, so if it's important you're better off taking the chance on Guatemala probably. If you do send anything down and don't get a timely "thank you" from us, though, please let us know so we can investigate the possibilities of disappearance... Or so that we can thoroughly thrash each other for being terribly rude and inconsiderate!
That's all I have for now... Please let us know if there's anything else we can help clear up for you about life down here. Thanks for all of your continuing prayers!
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3 comments:
Please send us list of needed items. We'll do what we can to meet the needs of your people. The challenge will be transportation.
Love, Mom
Matt & Heidi, just read your story in Bedford Now, we have also been touched by Guatemala as we adopted our first son from Guatemala in 2004 and are now in the process of adopting a little girl. We will be in Guatemala City the last week in November and might be able to bring a little down for you at that time. If not, we will pray for your work. Let us know if we can help with a note here. Steve, Amy, & Ethan
Steve, Amy, and Ethan-- Thanks for your interest! I'm not sure if this is what you meant by a means to reply, but we are of course interested in making contact with you. Can you please email us at heidi_and_matt@hotmail.com, OR leave your email address and/or phone number for us here as another comment... Whatever's easier! Congratulations on both adoptions!
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