Friday, February 11, 2011

Days 5-6 from Dr. Chris

Well, I have gotten a slow start this morning... kinda feelin' cruddy. Looks like I've caught a nasty little Guatemalan cold and spent most of the night up coughing and sneezing and trying to breathe... ugh. :-( So this mornings note may be a little short, but here goes...

We lose Matt today as he has to head back to the States for work... will be sad to see him go as he has been a GREAT help. Yesterday was slow... 1 surgery and 1 patient in clinic... and really wasn't a Gyn patient- she came in with abdominal distention... normal girl parts on exam but LOTS of ascites... US done with some input from Dr. Hoak looked like a GI tumor... ugly and she probably doesn't have a lot of time left. Cancer is such an ugly disease, but especially out here when they are SOOO advanced by the time you get them. Dr. Hoak (the full time American General Surgeon who also does a little of every surgical subspecialty from Plastics to Neurosurg) said that when he asks why they wait so long, they usually say, "well, I thought it would go away.." Anyway, she could use prayer... they did a paracentesis for some symptom relief but there really isn't much more here. Surgery went great at very least.

So today we go and round on our patient and then head to Aselsi, another local mission to help out with their free clinic... hoping I can remember my Gen Med stuff... :-) Tomorrow we will d/c our last lady and get a day to play tourist and head to Pananjel (sp?) which supposedly is a gorgeous little town on a lake. And then FINALLY home on Saturday... I will be ready... pretty tired and this cold is taking it out of me...

Continue to pray for the successful recovery of our patients and the patients we will interact with today. Pray for the health of our team... Brandi is feeling a little better but Victoria and Kent have had some GI stuff and I have this cold... we are all pretty exhausted. Thanks so much for the support... it means the world... God bless!

Chris

(And thanks again to Dr. Chris Deluca for letting me "steal" her blog posts from facebook and repost them here! --heidi)

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