Thursday at ASELSI

Today was clinic at ASELSI in Chichicastenango. Matt and Isaac came along, too. Heidi took one room and Annie and Beth took the other, to start. (Sometimes, the best way to learn is by doing.) Annie and Beth are both doing a great job here and really bring a lot to the team.

We saw our pretty normal load of patients. Visits ranged from prenatal visits to a wicked case of psoriasis to a woman who thought she was diabetic because her mouth gets dry when she eats sweet or salty foods. Osny's mom (Osny was one of our cleft palate kids) is pregnant again, so we're adding her as a prenatal patient.

Cecy, our translator, signed up for nursing school last week and starts in March. She will have a year's worth of Saturdays in class, then six months in clinicals, then she'll be an auxiliary nurse. She'll be one of the best ones around!

The first two pics are of our psoriasis patient. The first is of his biggest affected area (that we can show on our website). The second is of Beth helping him to put some cream on for that. The third pic is of a short discussion between Annie and Beth on what the best course of treatment is for a patient (or what they're planning to do for lunch - one or the other).

The fourth pic is - well, we don't know. We'll be sending this and some others on to a dermatologist we consult with in the US. It's a little baby who appears to be completely flea-bitten. But we could be wrong on that. Hopefully, Dr. Hess can help us out with that!

And fifth is another shot of the fence foundation going in. Someone mentioned that it didn't look like there was any rebar in the driveway. There's not, but it's 6" of concrete. The fence, however, will have rebar in the foundation and in the columns that are spaced every two meters. Plus, we'll put in a conduit to run power up each column, in case we want to light them or place security cameras. Conduits are much easier to run when you're pouring...

Tomorrow is Heidi's OB/GYN clinic at the Hospital Buen Samaritano.