Not Quite the Normal Weekend

The weekend, as many weekends do, really started on Friday night. About 10:45, WAY past our "old fogie" bedtime, our cell phone rang. We looked at each other and commented that that's why God invented voicemail. Then the house phone started ringing. So we figured it needed to be answered. Luckily, we did. It was the hospital calling.

When we first moved here, we introduced ourselves to all the folks at the hospital and gave them our phone numbers. They always have a doctor on staff during the night, but he or she is not always an OB/GYN. Heidi let them know to call anytime they needed help from an OB/GYN. Until last night, they hadn't called.

The doctor on staff had correctly diagnosed the mom with pre-eclampsia and fluid in her belly (can you tell it's Matt writing this?) and was afraid that the baby had the same problem. Heidi checked the ultrasound with him and decided that the baby just had a full stomach. In any case, she spent about half an hour there and we think that she really built some relationship by being available for consult. YAY!

Neither of us had been feeling very well on Friday and, by the time we had to get up to go to Canilla on Saturday, Matt was markedly worse. Apparently something didn't agree with his stomach and was determined to get out by any means necessary. So we didn't go to Canilla. A few hours later, Matt was pretty dehydrated. Luckily, his wife is a doctor and we have a fully stocked pharmacy here in the house. On her first try (practice sticks don't count), she got an IV in and Matt was rehydrated much quicker than his stomach could tolerate drinking much water. The rest of the day was spent "laying low".

This morning, we got up and headed to San Andres. Neither of us felt like running a marathon and the bumpy road was less fun than usual, but we made it. Good thing, too. We had over 70 patients! God let us know right away that it was a good thing we came, too.

Our second patient of the day came in bawling. We learned that her husband had beaten her up. Her husband is now living with another woman, whom he has kids with. She went to their house this morning to ask for her "child support". Needless to say, she didn't get any money. So we spent some time praying with her, putting some ice on her bruises, and giving her some pain meds. Then we thought to ask why she had gotten a number in the first place (she had a very low number, which means she had come at around 6am to purchase it - about two hours before she'd been beaten up.)

She told us that she was pregnant but was afraid she was losing her baby. She had reason to be afraid. She's only 18 weeks along (only one more than us) and had already broken her water. We'll spare the details for the non-medical people, but she's already quite infected. The danger is that her body could get overwhelmed with infection and she could be in a lot of trouble. On ultrasound, we were astonished to see a beating heart. This is where it gets tough for a healthcare provider.

Stastically, the baby has as close to zero as you can get for chance of survival. Even in the United States, where we have the best Neonatal ICUs in the world, this baby doesn't have much of a chance. In the third world, even less. However, you have a fetus with a beating heart. We are going to pray a lot for this woman. Her danger of severe infection is very, very high. She could lose her uterus or she could die. We treated her with antibiotics and we gave her all our contact information in case she starts feeling sick or developing a fever. In the meantime, we wait and pray. We ask you to do the same!

In other news today, we saw another woman with Bell's Palsy. She wasn't nearly as concerned about it as I would have been! We had another patient who had been a victim of spousal abuse in the past week and it's probable that she has some broken ribs. She's about 70, about 4'6", and about 80 lbs. We think we saw a case of mumps, a few days after the baby received the vaccine. Our friend, Rosa, was back in, too. Rosa is an asthmatic - perhaps one of the worst cases you can imagine. She almost died during her last pregnancy, but apparently, that's a nearly monthly adventure for her.

Last week, her family took her into the Centro de Salud (Health Center) unconscious. She says she can't remember anything. She gives herself IV steroids on a regular basis and even had to take some good puffs on her inhaler just to make sure she could walk a few hundred yards to clinic this morning. We always put her on our nebulizer for an hour or so. She always has a great attitude, even when she's visibly having a hard time breathing. Imagine the panic most of us would feel if we couldn't breathe. She simply sits down and waits for the nebulizer to be hooked up. She is young (20s or 30s) and probably doesn't have a 78 year life expectancy like the rest of us, but is saved and seems to be quite at peace with whatever God has planned for her. We could all learn a little from that.

Anyway, tomorrow, we are at our clinic in Chicabracan. We are fortunate enough to be able to bring Juan Diego back with us (the evangelist we met who has been helping out there). We are more excited about the work he's doing there than we are about what we're doing. All we're doing is trying to improve the health of peoples' bodies. His work should have a longer lasting impact.

Please continue to pray for our trip to the Ixcan. The enemy is doing his level best to discourage us from going and to throw up roadblocks. He clearly does not want us to invade "his" territory. But God is prevailing at every turn. There are still plenty of roadblocks to overcome, and we leave on Thursday morning, but we trust that God will help us.