Tuesday - Day Off

Today is one of our days off (our weekend is Tuesday and Wednesday). So at the time of this writing, Heidi has only been at the hospital for about nine hours. She had two surgeries scheduled for this afternoon and two more for tomorrow. Happy weekend!! (In fairness, we had Saturday and Sunday off this past weekend.)

She called at about 7:30pm after finishing her first surgery that started at about 2pm. She got into a royal mess with that Christmas Turkey uterus. Luckily, she and Dr. Hoak were able to repair the problem and keep the patient from bleeding out. Since we knew she wasn't the healthiest patient to begin with, they had her son donate some blood before the surgery, which they used. (The hospital does not have a blood bank - that technology does not exist here outside some very exclusive hospitals in Guatemala City.)

So, after 8pm, she started another long surgery - a vaginal hysterectomy with an anterior repair. If you're anywhere close to mealtime, don't ask what all of that means. In any case, she'll probably call here around 10:30 or 11pm for a ride home. Luckily all five members of our team here are grandparents, so we'll leave Isaac asleep in the house with them for an hour.

Speaking of Isaac, he's still sick with his first cold. He slept most of the morning and then again in the early afternoon, but by 4pm he was wide awake and unhappy. Matt finally got him to bed around 8:30. Thank God for iPods. Tonight's sleep was brought to you by Stevie Wonder, Daddy, and Isaac's Uncle Trip.

We just got an email from Leslie Ficker, too. She was alone in her clinic in Chiminicijuan today (her new daughter-in-law is still on her honeymoon) and was besieged by over 100 patients. She was in clinic for more than 12 hours straight. One of her patients was seven months pregnant but hadn't felt her baby move for a month. Ultrasound confirmed that there was no heartbeat. Since the patient refuses to come to the hospital, Heidi will see her this weekend and we'll see how we can help her from there.

Also, I'm not sure if you remember the patient that Leslie and Duane brought to Heidi and Tom at Buen Samaritano about a month ago with a huge abdominal mass, but the biopsy showed ovarian cancer (almost always terminal, especially here). The local city council (for lack of a better term in English) brought her to the hospital here in Quiche yesterday. We'll go check on her tomorrow morning, but there's probably very little that can be done for her. She only speaks K'iche and doesn't hear very well at that, so she's very, very alone. Luckily, she has been saved and will probably be with her creator in a much, much better physical condition very soon.

The SOS Team continues to do a fabulous job with their patients. The first round of surgical patients went home today, all of them ecstatic that they can now see - many of them for the first time in years. Talking with the local doctor who came to help with the surgeries, though, it seems that the government is working to put a full-time eye surgeon here in Quiche. There is already a full-time surgeon in Solola, just down the road, and they are trying to get another one here in Quiche in addition to the doctors from Guatemala City who will be coming every week next year. SOS is providing many of the consumable and disposable materials that they are using, so not only are they helping patients while they're here, they are directly helping nearly every patient the local doctors operate on! Sending Out Servants, indeed!

Well, tomorrow is more of the same from today. We'll be here in the morning, helping the team and doing some administrative tasks, then Heidi will be in Chichi all afternoon and into the evening.