11 December 2019
View of Hospital Adonai from the plane when we first arrived.
Hospital Adonai is typically functioning as an outpatient clinic treating all sorts or common issues and chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and seizure disorders. Another large number of the patients are pregnant women seeking prenatal care. There are still no deliveries in the hospital but there may be in the future. In addition, there have been more surgical teams coming.
Here are the first three patients I saw this morning:
Patient #1: “Ladina” (Spanish-speaking) lady in her forties with who had an 8cm thyroid mass removed. She had been seen about a year ago at our outpatient clinic at Hospital Adonai. She had labs done at that time that showed her thyroid function was normal, but she had an obvious mass. She then had the mass removed by a surgical team in Guatemala City (I’m not sure which organization) about two months ago. She was told to repeat her thyroid labs which she completed yesterday at an outside lab and she brought her records with her today. Thankfully her tumor was benign, her remaining thyroid was working properly, and she will repeat her thyroid tests in our lab in a couple of months. The point of the story is that this is a woman with some economic resources who got a surgery done and is proactive about doing proper followup. This is better than many of my patients in Detroit.
Patient #2: Mayan (non-Spanish-speaking) man in his sixties brought in by his family due to severe swelling. He has a history of alcoholism for 30 years but quit drinking 1 year ago. He reports a hospitalization at a government hospital 4 months ago and required a transfusion. He also has diabetes and brought some pills with him that he stopped taking 20 days ago when the swelling seemed to get worse. Not a lot of additional history. He was very swollen in his arms, legs, and throughout his body. His abdomen was very swollen and hard. Ultrasound showed ascites and no obvious liver mass. Through a translator, I gave the family the option of taking him back to the government hospital as is or we could do some blood tests which would cost them some money and wouldn’t really help the situation. The family decided just to take him to the government hospital which I think was the best option. The point of this story is to demonstrate a more “typical” complicated case with very limited history and having to communicate through a translator.
Patient #3: Spanish-speaking 67-year-old man who began having anxiety attacks and insomnia after a bolt of lightning nearly struck his house. According to the nurses, his story had changed a bit from having been struck by lightening to a near miss which took out the stereo system in his home. In any case, since then he has had severe panic attacks and insomnia. He had been seen at Hospital Adonai, several times. He was prescribed some mild sedatives (antihistamines) an a low-dose anxiety medicine and these have helped him some. Apparently, there is a belief here that if lightning strikes nearby it is a sign of a curse or something to that effect. I asked the man about his situation with God. He said that he had been more involved with church and reading his Bible but not so much in recent years. However, as a result of the incident, he has been reading his Bible and visiting a church nearby. I continued his medication, prayed for him, and gave him some Gospel tracts that we had brought from World Missionary Press. The point of this story is to highlight the fact that many medical problems have a spiritual component and sometimes this is more obvious.