Back to Work

After our nice vacation last week, it was good to get "back in the saddle" and head out to Canilla for our weekend clinics. Roy Simmons and his grandson, Cole, were with us for a few days to do some more planning for the addition onto the dorm. (Roy is going to be spending a lot more time down here and he's building two 2-bedroom apartments onto the current building.)

Saturday morning clinic was a little quieter than usual, with about 45-50 patients. One of the sick little babies we told you about a week or so ago came back. He had had pneumonia pretty bad and we were awfully afraid we were going to lose him. He got one dose of antibiotics in our clinic and went home. Mom sought no further treatment for him because she didn't feel good herself. Well, no one can claim that the medicines healed this kid - one dose of antibiotics wasn't the culprit. God definitely had His hand on this little baby - he looks 100% better!!

The rest of the morning consisted mostly of prenatal patients, our standard group of milk program (malnourished) kids, and general health problems (musculo-skeletal pain, gastritis, etc.). Roy and Cole got a chance to see some of the clinic and then we gave them a tour of the hangar, the airplanes, and some info on our upcoming projects.

A good part of the afternoon was spent counting out vitamins for our Thanksgiving Weekend trip to Zona Reyna. If you'll remember, this is an area a bit north of here that is down under 2000 ft. elevation (rain forest/jungle) that has no electricity and often no passable road between it and a hospital. It's about a 12 hour drive off-road to go about 25 miles as the Cessna flies (it's a 15 minute flight). The last time we were there for two days, we saw over 1,000 patients. This time we should have about 5 clinicians, including 2 doctors. With any luck, the local comittee will have done enough work on the grass runway that we can safely fly some folks in. Others will still have to drive. Remember that this is the runway where we lost the Aztec airplane - we're a little nervous about it!

Sunday was clinic in San Andres, as well as the second round in the national elections. Guatemala has around 30 political parties with many of them running candidates for President. Since no one candidate got more than 50% of the vote in the first round in October, we had the second round today. We don't involve ourselves in the political process here (we have bigger fish to fry) but it's been interesting to watch. We'll know in a few days who the new president is - unless there's some weirdness in Florida, of course.

Heidi has been having some fun teaching her translator (13-year-old Manuela) some basic medicine. Today they started teaching her how to do ultrasounds. Next week might be blood pressures. We've already mastered the pregnancy wheel and some basic diagnoses, such as body aches and heartburn. It's always good for people in the local communities to get some health education. Things that we consider common knowledge in the United States (if you have a headache or have some muscle aches, you can take ibuprofen - if you have heartburn, try a Tums) are completely beyond the common understanding here. People are often baffled that the same pill can help with a headache and a sore knee.

Today, Leslie saw a family that said that all of the kids in their village were feverish and had a rash. While we were a little unsure of exactly which one of the childhood viruses it was, it's clearly one of them. Reassurance is the biggest thing we can offer - it's pretty unlikely that this is going to be a fatal thing for anyone. Again, when health education is lacking, these things can be kinda scary. Especially when someone points out that their kid had a fever a few months ago and died.

Tomorrow is clinic at Roy Espinosa's church in Chinique. Paul and Lindsey may be able to join us (her mother has had some back surgeries and they were bringing her home today). Tuesday and Wednesday, Heidi will be operating at the Hospital Buen Samaritano because an American anesthesiologist is here (anesthesia is our biggest single expense on surgeries because we have to hire a local doc to do the work). Thursday is Isaac's 4-month check-up at our pediatrician's office in Guatemala City. Hard to believe it's four months already, huh? Some days it seems like it's been a whole lot more!