Good Tuesday

Today was really quite a smooth day overall, which is remarkably rare down here.  Three surgeries that went very well and a handful of consults that we easily managed mostly before starting our first surgery.  All of the post-op patients are doing very well and the three from yesterday will probably go home tomorrow.

The one little glitch was that we had to bring a case from the ER up to the OR and bump a scheduled case until tomorrow.  A young lady had come in to be seen in the ER last night with a very early pregnancy and pain in her left side.  Tom had seen her, done an ultrasound, and seen a cyst on the left ovary but was not too worried about her pain at the time.  She was supposed to come see me today or tomorrow to start prenatal care.  She came back in today with worsened pain and appeared uncomfortable enough that we were worried about a twisted or tossed ovary or a hemorrhagic cyst.  So up to the OR she went to find out-- unfortunately, we did not find a definite explanation for her pain, but fortunately we did not have to remove the small ovarian structure that is responsible for supporting her early pregnancy until the placenta can take over making hormones!  The family was very relieved that we had found nothing serious and very thankful that we had taken her seriously and looked.  I'm not sure we would have gotten that same response in the U.S.-- land of the CT scan, MRI, and a "rule-out-everything" mentality so it's  little refreshing to just have to make a decision based on the data that you have and for the patient to be appreciative of that!  And it's a LOT humbling.

It was also really nice to work with Dra. Lindsey Rodriguez today.  She came down from Quiche to work with us for the day and it was really nice to have her.  Some of you will recall that she and her husband Paul both have recently graduated from medical school here in Guatemala and joined Agape in Action in their work in rural clinics in the area.  Then tonight I saw Agape on the local TV news!  I walked in a tienda to buy a soda and there was a TV with local news playing-- doing a feature story on the large shipment of medical equipment that Agape sent to the hospital up in Quiche.  They interviewed the hospital director, who talked of Agape and Dr. Street's support for them over the years and how helpful it has been.  That was so cool to walk in on.

Tomorrow will be three abdominal hysterectomies and whatever else comes our way.  Thanks for your prayers for my health.  Please especially add Candelaria to your prayer lists; she is a 67 year old lady that we operated on for prolapse today.  She does not know The Lord although her daughter that brought her in does, so there is definitely great opportunity there... and with that I will leave you to your own thoughts and prayers.  Thanks again for following along.