Fickers to the Rescue (again!)

As most of you will remember, we've recently had more than our fair share of vehicle problems. One of the omst frustrating things here is that it seems like we spend about half our energy just keeping vehicles running. The Mazda recently had two separate stays at the dealership in Guatemala City (the only Mazda dealership we know of in Guatemala). The reason we had to take it in originally was that we were blowing smoke all into the vehicle and overheating. It turned out that it was because there was a leak in our heater coil. So they replaced it. A week or so later we found out that because the heater coil had leaked, we had lost cooling to the head and cracked it. So it spent a few weeks getting that replaced.

This past week, Heidi thought she smelled antifreeze again in the truck. Matt wasn't sure, but on Saturday morning, there was no doubt. It was about 40 degrees and we made the trip all the way to Canilla with no heater. When we would try to use it, we were full of smoke again and the windows got so coated with antifreeze film we could barely see. Not good on windy mountain roads.

By the time we got to Canilla, our floorboards were completely soaked with antifreeze. So David and Matt spent the morning at the airport taking the dashboard out of the truck to get the heater coil out. We brought it back to the house and found a leak in it in a place we couldn't really get to to repair it. So the options were to simply bypass the heater (not really the greatest in November at nearly 7,000 ft altitude with an infant in the vehicle) or to try to repair it.

So we called our friend Martin in Quiche, he found a shop that was open that could fix it, we flew it to Quiche, got it repaired (sort of), and flew home. This morning, we re-installed it in the truck, replaced the dashboard, and were on our way.

When we say "sort of" repaired, what the guy had to do was pull all the fins out, coat the tubes with a special high temperature epoxy, and hope for the best. It pressure checked okay, but time will tell how well it holds. The dealership claims that it's a two day job to pull the dashboard and replace the heater coil. David and Matt did the entire job in about 8 hours - and it was their first time messing with it. There won't be a next time (we'll just bypass it and shiver) but if there was, it'd be a whole lot faster. We can only hope that it holds while Paul and Lindsey have the truck in December because they don't really have the resources to address the problem if it goes bad.

Anyway, that whole operation probably saved us another $3,000 repair job from another cracked head - which is what would have happened if we had tried to drive the truck without a repair. So nice to have friends, right?

With David and Matt tied up with the truck, that left Heidi caring for Isaac - even during clinic on Saturday. Luckily, Saturday was a very low key day and Isaac was very well behaved. The only notable patient from Saturday was a woman who complained that she throws up all the time - but only when she sticks her finger in her throat...

Today, Heidi and Leslie went to clinic in San Andres and were pleasantly surprised to only have around 60 patients. That used to be a pretty busy day there, but the word has spread and there are usually in the neighborhood of 100 patients every Sunday now. Heidi had a patient today who came in with some pretty vague complaints and they quickly arrived at the fact that what he really needs is some spiritual peace. So she talked to him quite a bit then got our translators' uncle to evangelize a little more. The patient was pretty interested in knowing more about Jesus and was asking some good questions. Please pray for his spiritual journey to continue from here, not to find an abrupt end.

A 45-year-old woman came in pregnant. She herself has a cleft lip and palate so severe it was hard to understand her when she talked. She had had one baby with a cleft lip that starved to death after only a few months (most can't really get any good suction on the breast). She was very early in her pregnancy, but Heidi told her that if we see a cleft on ultrasound or if the baby is born with a cleft, to PLEASE come to us for help. We can get special bottles to help the baby eat until he or she is big enough for the surgery (most anesthesiologists want to see babies at at least 10 pounds).

And we had to give the bad news to one of our chronic asthma patients that it's really not a good idea for her to try to have another baby. She wants one, but her last pregnancy nearly killed her about 5 different times and she's gotten worse since then. It's sad to have to tell her that any attempt to have another baby will likely kill her and leave her daughter without a mom, but that's the unfortunate situation she's in.

Pics. The first is David inside the truck with the dash torn out. The gas can is holding up the steering wheel, which we had to drop down to get the dash out.

The second is the offending radiator with its slightly... uh... unsightly repair.

The third and fourth are of Isaac helping out. First by supervising, then by taking a nap. Wow - those car seats sure are great babysitters!

And the last one is of Heidi's translator, Manuela, practicing her ultrasound skills (with some help from Heidi!)