Since Isaac was sick all day yesterday and didn't really eat anything, he woke up pretty early this morning - hungry, but still not terribly interested in eating. So he fussed around most of the morning, pretty much unable to get happy. He seems to be feeling a bit better than yesterday, though, so hopefully tomorrow will be better yet.
We called our pastor friend in Nueva Santa Catarina this morning to find out whether Rudy's family could be found. Remember that yesterday he told us that they do not want the surgery to fix Rudy's face because they don't have any money. He hadn't been able to contact them again since the original discussion because they live pretty far from him and he doesn't have a car (he used to, but he sold it because gas was getting too expensive).
He asked if we could "come over" and go to see Rudy ourselves. We say "come over" because it's a 2-3 hour drive with at least three construction zones between here and there. Our original response was that we really can't, but after some thought, we decided that there really is no better excuse to make that drive than to try to help this little boy.
Heidi had a meeting in Chichi with the other medical missionaries and it wasn't really fair to leave her alone with a sick, fussy little boy, but she felt that it was worth it for Matt to go look for Rudy. So Matt went to Nueva Santa Catarina and Heidi and Isaac went to Chichi.
After getting to Matilde's house, Matt and Matilde drove another half hour off road to get to Rudy's village. Then it was a bit of a walk to their house. The family was very nice but most of the conversation was in K'iche. (Only Matt, Matilde, and the dad speak Spanish - and K'iche is the language everyone is most comfortable with, anyway.)
It turns out that Rudy had a surgery at a national hospital in Quetzaltenango last July to take out a pretty good chunk of his tumor. It's not nearly all gone, though, and there's quite a bit of reconstructive work to do yet. Luckily, Dr. Hollier, who is coming down with this team, is the chief of pediatric plastics at Texas Children's Hospital. There are very few surgeons in the world with his skill set and if Rudy's family will bring him, he has a chance at an outcome far better than he could probably get with local surgeons.
So we talked for quite a while. The family wants us to get in touch with Rudy's original surgeon in Quetzaltenango to make sure we know what he did. Luckily, they had a piece of paper with Rudy's chart number and doctor's name on it. So we'll do our best to get in touch with him.
Also, they understand the plan, which is to meet us in Chichicastenango on Thursday for a trip to Guatemala City that afternoon. We'll put them up for the night, then they'll have an appointment at the hospital with a Guatemalan doctor on Friday morning. Assuming that all goes well, he'll meet with the Americans on Sunday and get operated on next week.
All of this will require two trips to Guatemala City for us and probably two overnight stays, but if we can help contribute to Rudy's surgery, it'll be worth it.
Anyway, the way they left it was that they wanted to talk to some family friend in Antigua and then they would call us back with their decision. They were very appreciative of our time and effort, but Guatemalan families tend to be a little slow on the decision-making. They take surgery very seriously and do not rush into this type of thing.
Another example of that is the phone call we got this evening. Heidi had a surgery scheduled for tomorrow for a family friend of our mechanic friend, Martin. This woman is in her 60s (she thinks) and very likely has uterine cancer. The plan was to remove her uterus tomorrow. She decided against the surgery today, though, and her daughter called us to apologize and cancel the surgery. There's really no apology necessary, our job is to serve the people here. The best thing for the patient is probably a surgery, but we can't exactly kidnap people and forcibly remove their organs. Plus, they told us that the decision was made prayerfully and we have to respect that. Perhaps God knows something we don't. (Well, He surely does know a few things that we don't, but specifically on this case, we're guessing...)
So we were just getting started on Isaac's dinner when we got a knock at the door from David Ficker. He was in Guatemala City picking up some things for the addition to the dorm and had a much longer than expected trip up the mountain. He got into Quiche just before dark and decided to spend the night here to save him a drive to Canilla after dark and a turnaround to come back in the morning. (Duane, David, Juan and Matt are going to work on the plumbing for the addition tomorrow.) So we had a really nice visit with him and he'll be here tomorrow, too. We actually got to play host, for once, since they host us two days a week or so at their house!
Heidi is now down to one planned surgery for tomorrow - the woman whose leg was amputated last year and now has a mysterious mass on her thigh. Not exactly gynecology, but not terribly far from that area... Please keep the patient and her doctor in your prayers.
Below are some pics of Rudy. The first picture is when we met Rudy. This picture was taken on October 2, 2006 - Matt's first birthday in Guatemala. The second pic is of Rudy right before his surgery at San Juan de Dios in Quetzaltenango last July. And the bottom one is of Rudy today. We'll send it to Dr. Hollier in the US tomorrow morning to make sure that if he needs any specialized tools, he can bring those with him when he comes.
No comments:
Post a Comment