Wrapping up and More Craziness

So Thursday morning, Adele had to leave us for a flight out and back to work in Wilmington-- boo!  We will totally miss her, but Chris and I were able to round on the patients and discharge most of them.  All of them were doing well, even (sort of to our surprise) the lady who had retained over a liter of urine the night before :-/

We were able to discharge all of the patients Wednesday that we operated on Monday, and then able to discharge all but the surgeries from Wednesday before Chris and I left Thursday afternoon to head out here to Canillá.  Canillá, as many of our longer-term readers know, is one of my favorite places on Earth~  mostly because of the missionaries who live there full-time, who are some of my favorite and most wonderful people on Earth!

The Ficker (extended) family, and the other missionaries who have joined them now in the ministry, are an amazing group.  Tony has been out here working on installing WiFi as well as a camera security system at the hospital all week, so it was a happy reunion for him and Chris!

And speaking of the hospital~  holy moly!  It's amazing how close to finished it is physically.  We are still working on training up nurses and other staff~  and still wondering how we are going to fully staff it with doctors (could really use a pediatrician, an OB/Gyn, a surgeon, and an anesthesiologist!)~  but we know that God is in control of all of that even though He chooses not to reveal the full plan yet.

So we are just sitting around the table now chatting it up and telling stories... and oh, the stories we have to tell!  So many memories in this place, but we'll try to stick to the medical stories~

Today we saw several handfuls of patients in clinic, which is always fun since there are usually some patients here specifically for a gynecology consult.  The most interesting (and sad) one today was a young lady who delivered a stillborn infant last year.  She believes that she herself is lucky to be alive, as the doctors told her that in two more hours, she would get cancer that she would die from when the baby was delivered!  Usually when I hear a crazy "what the doctor said" story, I'm able to at least formulate a guess as to something the doctor might have said that maybe, somehow, could have been interpreted that way by the patient.  But this time, I've got nothing.  Any ideas?  At least the patient was happy and grateful, though.

Another first I had the other day was a patient's family member asking us if we were going to use mesh for her mom's vaginal surgery!  I forget that people here don't see the US daytime TV commercials that all are recruiting folks for lawsuits over vaginal mesh... I was so baffled by the question at first that it took me a second to answer.

I do also have to brag on the local gynecologist at the Hospital Buen Samaritano, though-- we actually had a patient that had been to see him with a small vaginal cyst and he had told her she DIDN'T need surgery for!!!!!  I've rarely been so excited.  Really.  (see previous "me have mass; me operate" post if you don't understand this)  Score one for Dr. Gil!

Those of you who are inclined, PLEASE, please, PLEase, please, PlEaSe be in prayer for our sweet friend Rosa here-- she used to translate for us in clinics, but is now married with one child and has been quite happy with her sweet husband.  They have one little boy, but miscarried a set of twins last year.  She was so excited to be pregnant again, but we were all a little mortified to diagnose her with...  TRIPLETS?!??!!  Really?!  Two of them are sharing a placenta, and they are already showing signs of having unequal blood supply pretty early in the pregnancy.  This is likely a situation where the only treatment available in the states is fetal surgery-- only offered at a few hospitals nationwide.  Clearly here, the only treatment available is prayer.  So let's pray it up, friends!  Please?

You can also continue to pray for our patients~  especially Gilberta and Magdalena, who have had some urinary issues post-op.  I'm trying now to upload some more pictures, but the cord I'm using may not work... I'll try to do so soon though!

I'll be back the first week in May, so please read and pray with us again then...