Monday Afternoon

It was a bit of an unconventional weekend. We had planned to get up on Saturday morning and head to Canilla for clinic, but Heidi ate something she shouldn't have and was up all night. So she took some drugs and got out of bed at 5:30pm. Matt got a lot of reading done - and spent some time adjusting the hammock that came down on the container - YAY!

Sunday we went to clinic in San Andres, feeling much better, and saw over 60 patients with Leslie, Katie, and Craig. Sunday afternoon, we came home and listened to a very disappointing UNC basketball game. It hurts when you're up 10 points with just a few minutes left and find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but sometimes that's how it goes.

Today, we had clinic in Chicabracan. We were fortunate enough to have Juan Diego (our evangelist friend) with us again. He said that he feels like there are a few people who are interested in his message there. Many of our patients are quite involved in the Mayan religion and really, really, really need to hear this news.

In addition, we referred three patients to the Hospital Buen Samaritano. We have two patients in particular that we're pretty worried about. We've been treating them for gastritis for a while, one of them even for an ulcer, but neither is seeming to get any better. Dr. Hoak has an endoscope and can take a look in their stomachs for us and let us know exactly what we're dealing with. One says she's 68 but looks about 90 - we're quite worried that she might have stomach cancer or something. Another patient told us that she wanted to come to the hospital on a day that Heidi's going to be there because she trusts her. That kind of thing really takes time and effort with the local people here and we felt so good to hear her say that.

Also on the good news front, one of our diabetic patients has achieved sufficient control that the hospital here is willing to do her hysterectomy. We've been working pretty hard with her to get her in control and it's wonderful news that the doctor here at the hospital feels good about her condition.

Tomorrow we will be taking a young girl and her parents to UNICAR (the cardiac hospital in Guatemala City) for an evaluation. She is 13 months old and weighs 13 pounds. She has a very strong heart murmur, probably indicating a hole or something. With any luck, they'll be able to help her there. If this situation isn't corrected, it's pretty unlikely that this girl has any shot at a normal life.

Later tomorrow, we have an appointment with OUR doctor to take another look at our son. Seems like our life is nothing but doctor's appointments lately - from one side of the table or the other!

Wednesday, Heidi has another surgery scheduled at Buen Samaritano. Time will tell whether Matt will need to be a surgical assistant that day - it's been a few weeks since he's had any recording time, but we'll see!