Friday, 25 March 2011
A lot of stuff that we see in the clinics don't really even need to be treated by a doctor. But from time to time we get more complicated or interesting cases.
Yesterday, we had a 33-year-old lady that presented to the ASELSI clinic. She had two weeks of severe swelling in her legs. Her blood pressure was 189/130. She had a lot of protein in her urine which suggested kidney damage. She was also severely anemic. Typically, in the U.S., she would be sent directly to the emergency department for further studies and treatment. Unfortunately, sometimes if we send patients directly to the government hospital, they may or may not get promptly evaluated. Therefore, we decided to order some labs, which ASELSI paid for, so we could get a quicker answer. This morning, she came back to ASELSI with some of her lab results and she was indeed in kidney failure and had severe anemia. Therefore, she was sent with her studies by ambulance to the hospital. We later visited her there and it sounds like the plan is to center to the Capital to a larger government hospital for further care. We continue to pray that she will receive good treatment and hopefully avoid dialysis.
Wednesday, we saw a young unmarried girl who had some menstrual irregularity. Areli did an ultrasound and found that she was 10 weeks pregnant. She couldn't believe it--even when Areli showed her the heartbeat and the baby moving. This was not the first "immaculate conception" that we had seen. Areli ministered to her, prayed for her, and encouraged her to make things right with God. The friend that brought her was another young married lady who we had seen the month before for her first pregnancy. When we examined her, it appeared that her baby had died she was awaiting a miscarriage. Sometimes, (most of the time), life doesn't seem fair. "Unwanted" pregnancies while others are trying to have children and can't. And as I learned in medical school and residency: "Only nice people get cancer."
Today we saw a 22-year-old young man who has been struggling with alcohol. He didn't stay drunk for weeks at a time, which is quite common here. But he would go out on Sundays to play soccer with his friends and gets drunk afterwards. We prayed for him and encouraged him to stay away from the bad influence of his friends.
As you can see, many issues here are the same as those of the U.S.
I would like to finish with another sad story. On Sunday, on our way to visit a local church, we passed a bad accident. Today we found out what had happened. Apparently, a 15-year-old girl wanted to marry a young man from another town. Her parents forbade this. Therefore, she made a copy of the key to her brother's moped so she could steal it to drive to the neighboring town to be with her boyfriend. She had never driven a moped before. So on Sunday, when she tried to elope, she missed the first curve leaving down, crashed into a tree, and was killed. As we passed the accident on Sunday, we prayed that God would be in control of the situation. I don't know what else to say about that one.
We are excited to leave Sunday morning for a week-long trip to Mexico City.
Here is the link to the most recent Agape In Action Newsletter.
A lot of stuff that we see in the clinics don't really even need to be treated by a doctor. But from time to time we get more complicated or interesting cases.
Yesterday, we had a 33-year-old lady that presented to the ASELSI clinic. She had two weeks of severe swelling in her legs. Her blood pressure was 189/130. She had a lot of protein in her urine which suggested kidney damage. She was also severely anemic. Typically, in the U.S., she would be sent directly to the emergency department for further studies and treatment. Unfortunately, sometimes if we send patients directly to the government hospital, they may or may not get promptly evaluated. Therefore, we decided to order some labs, which ASELSI paid for, so we could get a quicker answer. This morning, she came back to ASELSI with some of her lab results and she was indeed in kidney failure and had severe anemia. Therefore, she was sent with her studies by ambulance to the hospital. We later visited her there and it sounds like the plan is to center to the Capital to a larger government hospital for further care. We continue to pray that she will receive good treatment and hopefully avoid dialysis.
Wednesday, we saw a young unmarried girl who had some menstrual irregularity. Areli did an ultrasound and found that she was 10 weeks pregnant. She couldn't believe it--even when Areli showed her the heartbeat and the baby moving. This was not the first "immaculate conception" that we had seen. Areli ministered to her, prayed for her, and encouraged her to make things right with God. The friend that brought her was another young married lady who we had seen the month before for her first pregnancy. When we examined her, it appeared that her baby had died she was awaiting a miscarriage. Sometimes, (most of the time), life doesn't seem fair. "Unwanted" pregnancies while others are trying to have children and can't. And as I learned in medical school and residency: "Only nice people get cancer."
Today we saw a 22-year-old young man who has been struggling with alcohol. He didn't stay drunk for weeks at a time, which is quite common here. But he would go out on Sundays to play soccer with his friends and gets drunk afterwards. We prayed for him and encouraged him to stay away from the bad influence of his friends.
As you can see, many issues here are the same as those of the U.S.
I would like to finish with another sad story. On Sunday, on our way to visit a local church, we passed a bad accident. Today we found out what had happened. Apparently, a 15-year-old girl wanted to marry a young man from another town. Her parents forbade this. Therefore, she made a copy of the key to her brother's moped so she could steal it to drive to the neighboring town to be with her boyfriend. She had never driven a moped before. So on Sunday, when she tried to elope, she missed the first curve leaving down, crashed into a tree, and was killed. As we passed the accident on Sunday, we prayed that God would be in control of the situation. I don't know what else to say about that one.
We are excited to leave Sunday morning for a week-long trip to Mexico City.
Here is the link to the most recent Agape In Action Newsletter.