Isaac was a super little helper in clinic today. He only had a few melt-down moments, but they were easily dealt with. He's not feeling especially well since he's still dealing with his first little stuffy nose and cold. Poor guy!
We spent quite a bit of time with several of our patients today. We're focusing some on making sure that we know the spiritual status of all of our chronic patients. We truly dislike treating diabetes and hypertension. They are unbelievably boring and frustrating, but Leslie reminds us that this is a great way to really get to know some people and build a relationship with them that allows us to better evangelize. Since Chinique is mostly chronic patients, we're working on evangelizing a little better.
One of our patients told us that she doesn't really go to church because she's never been invited. Well, as of today, she has an invite. Another is a regular church goer, but her estranged husband drinks and often invites himself over to spend the night. Another is Catholic but says she doesn't know where she's going when she dies. Clearly, we have a little work to do with her! But great news to us is that who we believe to be our two most precarious patients (a husband and wife who were old when dirt was new) are both Christians and are absolutely sure that they're going to be with Jesus when they die.
Anyway, we may have told you before about Roy Espinosa (the pastor there) and a guy he's helping out a little bit. Chinto and Cristina got married last year and very shortly after, Cristina was a prenatal patient. We helped her all the way through her pregnancy. She came to the house once or twice when she was sick and we saw her every month in clinic.
Well, two weeks ago, she gave birth to a little boy (named Roy, believe it or not) in the hospital here in Quiche. He was 7lbs 8oz. Within a week or so, he was back in the hospital with a cephalohematoma (a bruise in the head acquired during delivery). He was also not eating well. We were told that the hospital was not doing a good job of explaining to the dad what was going on, so Heidi went down to go to bat for this kid. However, the doctor explained that she HAD explained to Dad what was going on and he proceeded to recite everything she had told him. Sometimes this job can be VERY frustrating!!!!
Anyway, today, Cristina came to clinic intending to talk about her post-partum pain. We took one look at Roy and switched the whole conversation over to him. He looks TERRIBLE! He's apparently still not eating well, despite the fact that he's eating a whole four times a day and "once or twice" at night. He's too weak to even cry with any enthusiasm.
We spent a lot of time with her explaining that this baby will DIE if he does not eat. He needs to be fed every two hours, whether he cries or not. Mom seems marginally interested in the entire process. Roy (the pastor, not the baby) drove out to the worksite where Chinto was working and informed him of the gravity of the situation. We brought the baby back to our house to weigh him on Isaac's baby scale and spend a little more time explaining to Mom that if little Roy tries to fall asleep during a feeding, he needs to be bothered until he wakes up and resumes eating. We explained that we had the same struggle with Isaac and that the baby's life literally depends on Mom's persistence and faithfulness.
Please pray for little Roy. We are very worried for him. We weighed him at 6lbs 8oz - a full pound down from his birth weight - and asked her to bring him back to the house again on Friday. If he's still losing weight, we'll have to come up with some more ways to help them.
Also, this afternoon, our friend Regina (the widowed mother of seven - three of which have cleft lips and palates) came by with Carolina (whose lip was repaired in January) and her 16-year-old son Isaias who had his lip repaired 14 years ago but still has a very significant speech impediment. We'll do our best to get him into the group that will be operated on again this coming January.
Regina also informed us of another child in her village who is "very poor" (seeing that Regina is practically swimming in money - NOT) who needs help. Well, that's why we're here. We gave her some money to help with her travel expenses and she's going to help bring this family to us (they don't speak Spanish and have no experience in using Chicken Buses).
Isaac was such a helpful little boy in clinic today, but he paid us back this afternoon. He was a bit of a challenge, but we'll take challenging afternoons in return for peaceful clinics!
As far as the eye team goes, they saw a slew of extra patients this morning and operated on every one that was scheduled for the day, with the exception of two that were disqualified based on some chronic health problems (hypertension, etc.). They also do an amazing job of following up on their patients and providing exceptional care. They really, truly demonstrate the love of Christ to each and every single patient they see.
Tomorrow, Heidi will be operating at the Hospital Buen Samaritano (a vaginal hysterectomy and anterior repair as well as a hysterectomy on the "Christmas Turkey" uterus - her son will be donating blood in case she bleeds a lot, which she might). Surgeries don't start until after lunch, so it'll probably be a late night.
Please also pray for the Fickers' vehicles - they lost another 4 wheeler this week. They're down from three to one now, have another truck with a transmission out of it, their 4Runner has an indeterminate engine problem, and we have one of their other Tacomas. For perspective, one of their 4 wheelers has over 18,000 miles on it. These things aren't for recreation - we actually need them to get around!!!
Pic one - little Roy. Pic two - Carolina, our favorite little cleft patient (even though we're not supposed to have favorites).
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