Back Home Again To Reflect and Give THANKS

Well, we didn't manage to get a blog post up Monday like we tried, but hopefully we can still go with "better late than never" for the follow-up?!

Anyway, we've all been back in the full swing of things in our clinics and at the hospital, so Pat and Carrie and I have seen very little of each other this week. I know they have both had some opportunities to share some of their own stories from Guatemala last week with colleagues and friends, though, and for that I am always thankful.

Our week finished up relatively without incident-- Glory to God for seemingly very safe healing of all of our gyn surgical patients, who all went home on Thursday! Thursday we had another few general surgeries-- a gallbladder and two biopsies on possible enlarged lymph nodes in a brother and sister from the same family. We also did a more involved case on an older gentleman that Tom had been observing for a day as an inpatient, who had come in with severe abdominal pain overnight on Tuesday. He was finally starting to convince us that surgery could help, and we were glad to find out upon operating that we were right! (well, okay, "we" is really just Tom; Us gynecologists don't spend a lot of time on the men's ward usually!) He had what looked like a pretty long-standing appendicitis, so Tom and Carrie cut out that section of his intestines to cure him of that. He will have a large surgery to recover from, but should be feeling better soon. This is the type of patient who could truly die if it weren't for life-saving surgery, and we are always grateful for God's faithfulness in providing for his children.

Without your prayers and financial support, people like this do get turned away from many other hospitals-- or delayed long enough in the government hospital that they get too sick to operate on or die anyway! I thank God regularly for His provision, and for people like Tom and Jana who devote their lives to caring for His children. We look forward to another great trip in May, so please stay posted for more on what we are doing.

Oh, wait-- Almost forgot to explain the pictures today... The first is a relatively rare shot of a Mayan lady smiling! (Smiling in pictures is not a cultural norm here, generally...) She was one of our vaginal hysterectomies from Tuesday, and we were thrilled to see her up and about and looking so well. She is pictured with several of her family members and friends who were there to support her. The one here at the end is of a young lady who delivered her baby overnight at the hospital. They called Carrie and I to come evaluate her because they thought she might need a C-section, but the baby delivered within the five minutes that it took us to get down to the hospital! We were able to print a copy of this out for her, which is a rare gift for the poor in a developing country and brought a lot of smiles to the family's faces. What a privilege to ever be a part of something like that!