Anyway, clinic actually went quite smoothly. We got some good news on Sharon's health concern and were able to share our thankfulness at hearing that news with her.
We saw a boy that was referred to us by Keritas who appeared to have had a stroke a few years ago. The family's story is that he was a year and seven months old when he was brought to the hospital here in Quiche with appendicitis. They believe that after the surgery he contracted meningitis. They also believe it's possible he had a bad reaction to the anesthesia. In any case, he went into a coma for a few days and when he woke up, he basically had no control over the left side of his body.
For a while, he was unable to walk. Then he was fitted with a plastic brace to hold his ankle in the correct position. With that he can walk and even run a little. He's not about to win any Olympic track events, but he can get around and even play a little soccer (which is of the utmost importance for ALL boys here!). Also, his left arm usually just stayed behind his back, twisted up back.
They did a surgery on him somewhere here that cut and repositioned some tendons in that arm so that it stays in front of him now. He still can't control it - it moves around and his hand opens and closes without any input from him - so he usually keeps it tucked under his right armpit to keep it from swinging around.
We got him an appointment with our orthopedic surgeon friend and informed him of the existence of the physical therapy program at ASELSI. His dad was appreciative of the orthopedic consult, but was a little concerned about physical therapy because the boy is in school and they don't want to pull him out of classes one day a week for PT. The hope is - if Dr. Edgar thinks PT will help - that he can come a few times and learn some of the exercises he can do by himself at home and maybe make some progress that way.
Another patient that day was a woman we met a few weeks ago when a team was here. She is extremely sick - with what we're not sure - but she weighs about 70 lbs and her hair is falling out/breaking off. She's a bit jaundiced and her liver function tests came back abnormal, but negative for hepatitis (she told us that another doctor had diagnosed her with hepatitis before). She says that her husband thinks she's 28 years old but she's not sure that he knows for sure, so she's going to bring her ID card next month.
She has been pregnant twice. One baby miscarried at 7 months. The second one started to come premature. They went to the hospital in Quiche because she started bleeding a lot. The baby was delivered by c-section and sent by ambulance to Guatemala City because it needed a ventilator and they didn't have one here in Quiche (or didn't have one available). That was the last she ever saw of her baby. She said that her dad tried to go down to Guatemala City to find out about the baby and because he didn't have a chart number or case number, they couldn't tell him anything (they usually don't name their babies here until quite a long time after birth). They tried one more time to find out about the baby but no one could really tell them anything. So she doesn't really know if her baby lived or died. She thinks it probably died, but she never saw a body or was officially told by anyone. Can you imagine????
Anyway, after clinic, we went to go check on Heidi's patient from Wednesday. We really need to study her condition a bit before we give them any prognoses or options, but a rapid metastisis of bone cancer in a 29-year-old probably means that she has less time that you'd hope for. We will spend quite a bit more time with her on spiritual matters when she comes back for her follow-up appointment in two weeks, too - probably involving our pastor friend, Bill.
At about the same time, we met up with Rudy and his family. Apparently, they have some friends who are a married couple who live near them who have a little bit more money and have been very nice about helping them out. Rudy has been to most of the major hospitals in Guatemala already and his dad tells us that this man "always accompanies them" when they go anywhere. This couple brought them to Chichi to meet us and wanted to meet us and thank us for the work we're doing for Rudy. We thanked them for all the help they've given throughout the years, too, and for their concern for this family.
We hopped in the 4Runner and headed down to Guatemala City. We went to the hospital, got Rudy registered there with the social worker, took the family over to the Hospidaje (think: Ronald McDonald House) that they will stay in for the next week, which is very beautiful, run by some nuns, and costs $2 a night for the family. That includes all of their meals, too!
We gave Dad Q100 (about $13) for some "walking around town" money and instructed them to meet us back at the hospital in the morning. They were to arrive at 7am to register for their pediatric consult. We came in around 8am to wait with them and help out with any issues that might pop up (Guatemalans tend not to be too persistent when someone tells them that something can't be done).
When we arrived, Rudy's dad had already paid for his consult (from the money we gave them - instead of just waiting for us to arrive) and bought a phone card to be able to communicate with their friends back at home (who had already asked about when they could come down and visit).
After Rudy was seen by the pediatrician at the hospital, he was sent for a CT scan. That cost $40. Dad makes about $8 a week, so we obviously picked up the tab on that one. They needed to wait for the results and we needed to get going (the construction zone only opens for 30 minutes and then you wait for two hours), so we gave them money for a cab ride back to the Hospidaje and instructions to call us if they needed any help.
After our clinic on Monday morning, we'll drive back down to Guatemala City and meet up with them again, try to meet up with Dr. Hollier, and see what else we can do to help out on Tuesday.
In the meantime, though, we have our regular clinics in Canilla and San Andres. Isaac's Grandma and Grandpa Bell fly in on Sunday and Duane will pick them up and fly them to meet us in Canilla (turning a 4-6 hour drive into 25-30 minutes).
In pictures, the first two are of the 40-plus kids who graduated from ASELSI's milk program this month. They are now spending over $1,000 a month (that's DOLLARS, not quetzales) on milk for over 200 kids. Most of those kids would die without the help they're getting from ASELSI. So if you have a few extra bucks sitting around and want to help out, we can get you in touch with the right people. (Yes, your math is right on that - $5 a month can help keep one incredibly cute kid from starving to death.)
The third pic is of Isaac flirting with a little Mayan girl while swinging on the swingset on the playground there.
And the last pic is of Rudy's mom and new little brother, Ronnie, at the hospital in Guatemala City. That's one kid who's not starving to death!
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