Monday and Tuesday Clinics

Monday morning, Annie, Beth, and Heidi headed out to Chicabracan for our bi-weekly clinic there. Matt and Isaac stayed home to supervise the finishing of the driveway and to receive a few truckloads of construction materials. During Isaac's morning nap, Matt put another gallon of paint on the east side of the house, nearly finishing that side before Isaac woke up.

Clinic in Chicabracan was relatively routine but with many new patients. Most of our chronic patients there are on an every 4 or every 6 week schedule. This particular week we didn't have many chronic patients scheduled and we saw lots of first-timers.

One notable patient there was one we had suspected with a miscarriage two weeks ago and, sadly, we were able to confirm that on Monday. In better news (sort of), we have a patient there who we had feared had unstable angina and this time it sounds like she has stable angina and gastritis. Sometimes it's hard to separate the descriptions of actual chest pain with heartburn.

The last patient of the day told us that the number she had was for herself. She thought the baby strapped on her back had a broken arm, but the number was for the mom. Mom had a headache but the baby actually appeared to have a broken elbow. It was completely black and misshapen. Naturally, we spent a little more energy with the broken arm. We can't actually diagnose broken bones in clinic, but very strongly suggested a trip to the hospital.

This morning we met the builders here at the house and got them started, then went to clinic with Leslie and Katie in Chiminicijuan. On our arrival, we found that David was on his way to Chinique to get some more things from Roy Espinosa, who is moving back to the US later this week. So Matt and Isaac rode with him to help out and say Good-Bye to Roy.

This clinic was also pretty routine. We did, however, see a ruptured eardrum in a little baby. Also, Duane came out and did some eye exams and fit some glasses.

Arriving home, we found that the builders had made some pretty good progress on digging a foundation for the new fence. They got into a bunch of really big rocks, which they're enjoying thoroughly.

Tomorrow, we hope to make it out to Chujuyup, where Regina lives, and see if we can maybe do a clinic there at some point. We got some rain today, which is quite unusual for this time of year, so we'll see how passable the roads are in the Mazda, which we'll have to use because we'll likely have about 10 passengers. (No one ever goes anywhere by themselves, so we're expecting a full house in the morning.)

In pictures, the first is of Beth examining a baby in Chicabracan yesterday. The second is of Duane fitting some glasses in Chiminicijuan. The next three are of the construction project. One is of the recently completed driveway, one is of the chalked off border for the fence (yesterday) and the other is after nearly a full day of digging.