Monday/Friday

Mondays are never fun. Unless they're also Fridays. In which case they're still often not fun. See, because of our weird week, Monday is really Friday. When it says "Monday" on your calendar, that's the last day of our work week, which makes it like a Friday. But Fate seems to not want to let us off that easy.

This morning, Isaac woke up between 5:00 and 5:30. And he had no interest in going back to sleep. It was Matt's turn to get up with him, so he did. Shortly after, though, Heidi's cell phone rang. Keep in mind that it is still WELL before 6:00am. It was our friend Regina. Matt asked her if there was a clock where she was - kind of a stupid question since she can't tell time - and told her that, no, she could not speak to Dr. Heidi because she was still sleeping. Well, the phone had woken Heidi up anyway, so we eventually put her on. We will admit that this is the first time that Regina has called us with something ridiculous.

Her call was for a friend who was "bien malo" (really bad). He had a cold. We told her that if he was truly "bien malo", they needed to go to the emergency room. She said that they could do that, but would just be given a "mountain of prescriptions", which is completely true. We told them that we would be home in the afternoon after clinic and would help fill those prescriptions if that's what they needed.

Clinic today was in Chicabracan. This was our last time to go with our evangelist, Juan Diego. He will be moving to Honduras next month to continue his studies in theology. He promised to recommend a friend to us and since we've been so impressed with him, we have no doubts that his friend will be great, too.

We normally see around 30-35 patients in Chicabracan. Today was around 50. Several were prenatals and all of them are doing pretty well, except one. She says she's 39, which would make Heidi and Matt about 13. She came in about 8 months ago with some early symptoms of menopause. Today, she and her husband came in with some rather suspicious complaints. We asked if she was pregnant. They said that the midwife had told them after the last baby that that one was their last one, so they couldn't really be pregnant. Not only is she pregnant (for the 12th time), it's with twins. Not exactly the news they were looking for. So, yes, it's still possible to get pregnant when you're starting menopause.

Through all of this, Isaac, who has recently learned to crawl and pull up, was not too excited about being penned up in his pack-n-play. Suzy will gripe at us for this (our pediatrician friend who just visited last week), but you'll be glad to know that a piece of black licorice can keep a 10 month old happy and quiet for nearly an hour. Messy, but quiet and happy. We were also smart (or crazy) enough to bring our laptop, which has a DVD player. We put it behind some boxes where our patients couldn't see it, but Isaac could. Baby Einstein videos are like magic, too. All things considered, he did great with the whole 6 hour incarceration thing. Luckily, there aren't too many of these left.

When we got home from clinic, exhausted, there were two more patients waiting for us at our front door. Matilde, the pastor from Nueva Santa Catarina, was here with the sister of a patient we've told you about before. The patient was one of our prenatals there who we diagnosed with pre-eclampsia and recommended a trip to the hospital. She ignored us and delivered in her house. Two weeks later, she quit talking and couldn't walk (we're thinking maybe a stroke???). They called us and asked us what they should do. We sent them to the hospital where they prescribed some blood pressure meds, which her husband went out and bought. Matilde and the patient's sister came all the way here today (two hours each way) for some ibuprofen and vitamins. We'll hopefully see her in our clinic out there in a few weeks and help with some more meds.

Also waiting were Regina and her sick friend. He may not be too terribly sick, but he's not too terribly young, either. He apparently had an infection of some type, because he had prescriptions for some antibiotics and some cough meds, which we gave him.

Tomorrow, Duane flies in in the morning with some patients who need wheelchairs. There is a team coming up to ASELSI who will be giving out wheelchairs and we have a couple reserved for these patients. Either Heidi or Matt (whoever wins the coin toss) will ride down with them and help out while the loser of the coin toss stays home with Isaac and chases him all around the house. (Just kidding about the loser of the coin toss - as far as you know!)