Yesterday, I blogged about a baby that lives near Panajachel. His name is Edison and this is him with his mom. Hector, the driver for Solomen's Porch, will bring Edison and his family to the clinic on Monday for a consult. Hopefully, we can get him scheduled for surgery in August.
We had a very sick child come to the clinic today. They had written his temperature down for me when he first arrived and it was 99.4. When I began examining him, he felt much warmer to me.......he was now 102.9. He was having difficulty breathing and his father told me that he had been sick with fever for 15 weeks. He had good breath sounds on his right side but he was really diminished on his left side and using his accessory muscles to breath. He had not drank anything today and was not making much urine.I understand why many patients do not want to go to the hospital here and I was thinking of the different options we had as I continued to talk to the father. I thought the child was too sick to return home and yet did not want to send him to the hospital. Fifteen days of being this sick is just too long. A bad as I did not want to, I suggested he take him to the hospital. The risks of going home were too high. He needs lab work and xrays. The father said he would take him to the hospital in Santa Cruz. Maury prayed for Carlos and his father before they left. I have his phone number and told him I would call in a few days to check on Carlos.
We ended up with 14 medical patients and 11 dental patients. In the afternoon, we practiced some Spanish, K'iche and English. At the end of my two years, we will be tri-lingual :) NOT!! But it is fun to practice and they are very good to help me.......I could not be working with nicer people......they are an encouragement to me every day.
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