Weekend With the Fickers

This was another wonderful weekend with the Fickers in Canilla and San Andres. We came in for clinic on Saturday morning, as usual, and saw a typical blend of patients. We did see a patient who had some bleeding of the variety that Heidi would be interested in (as a gynecologist). Apparently, her bleeding was sufficiently serious that she took two units of blood. Remember that there is not a "real" blood bank here (they can't freeze blood and very few people ever donate). Taking ANY blood, let alone two units, is pretty serious.

Heidi offered to spend some more time with her at the Hospital Buen Samaritano and to discuss what surgical options she might have. The lady is going to talk it over with her husband and they plan to pray about it before they decide. Pretty sensible, if you ask me.

In the afternoon, we all piled into the trucks and drove to San Andres to work on our NEW clinic room. In San Andres, we rent an apartment for around $40 a month and that's where we hold clinic. The problem is, with four stations, that room gets kinda small. Plus we have some student teams and several visitors coming this summer, so we've decided to expand. The room next door became available, so now we're renting them both for about $80 a month. The beauty is that we can leave some furniture, an ultrasound machine, some medicines, some exam tables, etc. in place and don't have to cart them all every week.

With Heidi being pregnant, she wasn't allowed in the room while we were painting (water based paints here are kinda crappy and don't work too well). She got to employ her organizational skills instead and worked on medicines. The only problem is, now that the new room is freshly painted, it makes the old one look like it needs a new paint job, too. Hmmm.... students coming... paint needed... what to do? Anyway...

Today we did clinic in San Andres (with our new two-room set-up). We miss having each other all in the same room, but it is MUCH more peaceful and we feel like we can communicate with our patients better. We have some follow-up information on several of our previous patients there.

We brought a woman here to Quiche a few weeks ago whom we'd been following through her pregnancy and she had developed pre-eclampsia. They delivered her baby here at the hospital and she is healthy and happy.

Heidi did a vaginal hysterectomy at the Hospital Buen Samaritano on a patient from this clinic three weeks ago. She came in today and is feeling great and is very grateful for the surgery.

We met a girl at this clinic last week who has a mass in her knee. It's not too large, but it affects the way she walks. Her family has been given the "Guatemalan runaround" at every hospital they've been to. They've even been to Guatemala City to try to get her knee looked at. They've paid money, they've spent nights in the hospital, they've even had family members donate blood (a common requirement since no one does it willingly), but no surgery. We took her papers to Dr. Hoak in Chichicastenango and he's willing to try to do her surgery. Great news for them!

In additional news, Katie has managed to raise the support she needs to continue her work here in Guatemala for the next year. We are VERY excited to hear that! We were pretty bummed about the possibility that she would have to move back to the US after her initial support ended.

We promised pictures of the plane back in Canilla, so here they are. Note that the wings are still mounted on a truck and the engines are now on stands. You'll also see a new nose that the guys picked up in the US in January. We're still missing the new propellers ($25,000 worth), but we're much closer to being able to fly on our next trip to the Ixcan.

Tomorrow we're in Chicabracan and Tuesday we pick up Matt's parents from the airport in Guatemala City. Still no news on the container. Please keep praying for that to go smoothly!!!!