… to a rather slow start to the week, to tell you the truth! We saw only 13 patients today, which would be awesome if more than ONE of them could have been scheduled for surgery :-/ My prayers will now be strongly renewed for God's continuing work and purpose here for me, as I always get a little paranoid when the numbers dwindle. I'm also going to be praying even harder for Tom and Jana Hoak, as they continue to try to work out a plan that shares more time with their family and friends in the U.S. while continuing some work down here. The hospital is much quieter without them around (and NOT in a good way), and I personally miss them dearly!
So now paragraph two after two heavy prayer requests already-- time to lighten up a bit maybe?! We did have some delightful patients in clinic today, and I for one really enjoyed working with our mixed Guatemalan-U.S. group of physicians. Lindsey and Paul were a great help and joy to have around. Dr. Jared was also awesome-- so patient and wise, and working really hard to master some more Spanish but starting to catch on a bit!
So the patients we saw today-- the only one I remembered to take a picture of is Maria Ren, the lady we will operate on tomorrow. She was there with several of her 11 living children who are also pictured, and you can see Dr. Paul in the background also.
Unfortunately we had another lady who really could benefit greatly from vaginal surgery but had a blood sugar of 466!! Fasting blood sugar was only 237, but we figured it would be a lot better to wait and get her sugars under control first. So, Chris Schwering, that is our gift to you in November (assuming the metformin we gave her will be effective).
The best part of clinic by far, though, was that being less busy we really had some time to just have some fun with patients-- We had one patient that initially confused us, since she had three different daughters translating and often giving different stories! My favorite part is when we asked if she has a husband-- one daughter said yes and the other no! Dra. Lindsey picked up right away that she actually has a "boyfriend", but the girls's father has passed away. I was just baffled by the higher difficulty level of that question than I had anticipated. We all had a good laugh, though, which is healthy and fun.
We also had a little fun in the market and teaching little David to "meech" or be tied on Mom's back like a Guatemalan baby. Both Mom and David were pros by the end of the day! The first picture here you can see he's not quite sure about this new deal, but I love the family shot on the way to dinner of the Cardwells…
Our last patient today actually just came in asking for a pap smear, which I have had happen very rarely here in Guatemala. It is always nice to see a little bit of progress being made in preventive care education! "Poco a poco", my friends… (little by little)
And as we go to bed tonight (at a little after 8:30, although we all feel like it MUST be 11:00 or so), we are so blessed to know that God is good, God is sovereign, and God is IN CONTROL. We will see what tomorrow brings.
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