God makes me laugh!

What a day!  Today God sent me Dr. Luis Aquino and Don Allison from Canilla' to help in the OR and the clinic-- huge, huge blessing to get to work with these guys and get to know them better! Great help in the OR, great help in the clinic, and great company.

Our three surgeries today went quite well, and we just saw the patients before bed and they all look good so far post-operatively.  Tomorrow we have two more vaginal surgeries.  We saw 7 more patients in the clinic today (more difficult than it sounds since we just had to hurry and see them between surgeries!) but didn't schedule any more surgeries.  We did unfortunately have to send one lady to the National Hospital up in Quiche for her gallbladder, though... bummer to be here without Dr. Tom!!

Here's how God made me laugh today, though-- At least two of our patients were "gentle" reminders of how sometimes He just has to shove me out of the way to get His work done!  (Or just hide my passport from me, maybe... ;-))

First one:  A lady who has been seeing both me and Tom for years now for non-descript pain and complaints-- always wanting surgery but never with any real indication for surgery or reason to believe that it would help.  In short, she was a patient that I had grown somewhat frustrated with and wasn't very fond of.  I know most of the other medical folks reading this can relate, but it's the simple fact of having a sinful heart-- some patients (or people) just rub you the wrong way, you know?

So-- some of you will remember that I arrived late to my last trip because I lost my passport.  Kelly Pieh-Holder, a chief resident at the time (Now GRADUATED!!!) did clinic by herself on Sunday and Monday.  When I arrived Monday night I went through the charts to see what she had scheduled and came across this lady's chart.  I seriously thought, "HOW did she manage to talk you into a hysterectomy, Kelly?!"  But it seemed that some of her prolapse had worsened and it seemed more reasonable-- plus Kelly had some concerns about some spots on her cervix and actually took biopsies before the patient talked her in to just going ahead and doing the hysterectomy.

Turns out (of course!) that it was a good thing that both the biopsies AND the hysterectomy happened-- this lady had carcinoma-in-situ in her cervix on her pathology report!!  For those of you non-medical folks, that means she had CANCER that just had not "invaded" past a certain level yet!  It could have progressed any day to a much bigger problem.  And now-- because God got me out of my own way long enough to get His work done-- she is cured.  Humbling.  And beautiful.

Oh-- and the pathologists only found the CA-in-situ because we "accidentally" sent the biopsies off separately from the uterus-- If I had realized we were sending them both, I would have thrown away the biopsies since we had the whole uterus and not paid for two pathology specimens.  They initially read the uterus as negative in the lab, but then saw the CA-in-situ on the biopsies and took another look at the uterus.  They had to call Tom and send an amended pathology report with this finding!  Again, "solo Dios".  I would have messed that one up, too, if left to my own "wisdom".

The other story is slightly less striking but still funny and exciting in its own way-- Back in 2009, Chris and I (I think it was her first trip down here?!) went to remove what we THOUGHT (by ultrasound and physical exam) was a large fibroid kind of hanging off the top of the uterus (pedunculated fibroid).  Turns out, we opened her up and found, unfortunately, that the fibroid was inside the uterus and basically taking up the whole uterus.  We were afraid to remove it because if too much bleeding happened, then she would have ended up with a hysterectomy.  She was in her late twenties and not married so had no children at the time so that was not a risk we felt like we could take.

Well, over the years a few things have happened-- (1) the fibroid has continued to grow to the point that she was ready to remove it even if it meant a hysterectomy and sterility, and (2) she got married.  In June she came to Dr. Tom to ask for the hysterectomy and he set her up for surgery.  So guess who showed up with a positive pregnancy test on her surgery day?!?!  Today we confirmed a live, 13 week pregnancy that appears to be situated below the huge fibroid and will hopefully grow normally.  Please do pray for sweet Eva, though, as this pregnancy will likely get uncomfortable for her quite quickly as the baby grows.

Tonight at dinner, I was so blessed to be able to hear more of Luis's story about how he and Naomi met and ended up in Canilla'.  What an amazing instrument God has in him!  Also loved hearing more of Don's testimony and just sharing the amazing things that are happening in our lives.

Hope you all are having half as great a week as I am~  I would still love to have some feeling back in the side of my left hand, but so far surgeries have been okay anyway so just keep praying!

Thanks and good night,

heidi.