Clinic at ASELSI

Today was our "almost" weekly clinic at ASELSI. John and Sharon are gone to the US for a while, so we clearly miss them a lot. Virginia, a nurse from Canada who now works at ASELSI, is doing a great job filling in, though, so that helps.

We saw several prenatal patients today, a few babies (fortunately, most were really not very sick), and a few diabetics.

We did see a baby with a very loud heart murmur - to the point that it's very hard to even hear her breathe through all the "whooshing". She's over a year old and weighs 13 lbs. She's simply not growing. We'll be contacting UNICAR (the cardiac hospital in Guatemala City) to see what we can do to help her.

Also, we had a male patient in his 50s (he looks MUCH older than that) who came in with a paper from a lab stating that he does not, in fact, have tuberculosis. Apparently he had seen a doctor somewhere who asked him to go get this test done. He has had a nagging cough for some time. He looks awful. Matt asked him if he smokes. No, but he looks like he does. Heidi pointed out that he looks like a smoker because he looks like he has cancer. He just has "that look". He has extremely diminished sounds in one lung and has pain on that same side. Additionally, he described some issues in his throat that make it feel closed sometimes. So our next step is a chest X-ray and a lot of prayers that we're wrong about this.

We also had a female patient who has had uncontrolled diabetes for a few years, according to her. She said she had a surgery a few years ago in which they took out something that weighed 15 lbs, but she doesn't know what. After that, they told her she has diabetes, but she hasn't taken anything for it. Her sugar was about 3 1/2 times the normal level. She's going to bring what records she has at her house the next time we're there, and we'll try to get her chart from the hospital here. With any luck, we can figure out what happened and try to help her.

Today has been busy with phone calls and emails surrounding the arrival of our container here next week. Please pray that everything goes smoothly and we get it here before we have to leave for the Ixcan. That will make life much, much easier for everyone. The enemy REALLY does not want us to make this trip and we are determined to work against him.

Just this evening, we got a call from our pregnant patient whom we diagnosed with breast cancer a few months ago. This has been quite the journey. Originally, she and her husband were very compliant. They got the tests done that needed to be done, had her biopsy taken at Buen Samaritano, and scheduled her for a radical mastectomy in December. Then things went bad. They went to a faith healer who talked her out of the surgery. Then, they apparently decided to get the surgery, but in Guatemala City. Unfortunately, they didn't have enough money. So we offered to help with money (the real goal is for her to get her surgery done, not that we necessarily do it). Our call tonight informed us that after she'd been in the hospital for nearly a week, they told her they couldn't do her surgery because she's pregnant.

The problem is that she has an aggressive form of breast cancer. The sooner we can do something about it, the better. Her baby will not be born for a few more months. Waiting isn't really the best option. Hopefully, we'll convince them to come to Buen Samaritano and get her surgery done before any more time passes. It's already been two months since her original surgery was scheduled! Please pray for things to go smoothly there, too.

Tomorrow we have another neat clinic in Chinique. This clinic is with our friend Roy Espinosa. Roy, you'll remember, is an American who was raised bilingual. He is a pastor and teacher here and lives and works in a pretty dark area. There are lots of coyotes (human smugglers) and occultists in his town. Clinic is a great way to get people into his church so he can minister to them as they're waiting for their consult.

Sorry for the long post with no pictures... maybe tomorrow!