15 February 2025
We continue to see a mix of not-so-sick and more severely ill patients at the hospital and also at the clinics. Yesterday, I did pediatrics. I was expecting to see some rather sick kids. However most of the moms were just looking for vitamins and worm pills. On the other hand, there is a lot of diabetes and high blood pressure. These patients go into the “chronic” program and have regular followup and lab monitoring. It seems like we are adding people every day.
Here are a few cases that stick out:
A couple of weeks ago up at the Chiminisihuan clinic, I saw a young man who was complaining of headaches and not sleeping well. Upon further questioning, he revealed that his 6-month old boy had died a couple of months ago from hydrocephalus. He had gone to the government system and received a lot of help this way. However, every time the infant had a shunt put in to relieve the pressure on the brain, he had to pay. He borrowed money from many people and even sold his land. However, the child ended up passing away. Since then, he has not been sleeping well and has the constant stress of needing to repay approximately $2000 to the people that he had borrowed from. Medicine was not going to help him much, but he allowed me to pray for him.
On Thursday, at the Santa Elena clinic, I saw an elderly man who came for chronic care. The diagnosis was clear as he walked in with a Parkinsonian gait and a pill-rolling tremor in both of his hands. He didn’t talk too much but his daughter states that he had been serving in the church but was now very limited by his Parkinson’s disease. Adonai has been providing his Sinemet (carbidopa/levodopa) which is the only accessible for this condition. He gladly received prayer.
Today, we saw an 82-year-old woman at the hospital who has begun having abdominal pain and yellow about 2 weeks ago. Her bilirubin was extremely high which was causing the color, but it was not clear what was causing this. She reported that she was a Christian. There was not much we could do for her medically and recommended she go to the government hospital with a copy of her lab results for further testing. But there was some peace in knowing that if she was a believer, come what may, her future in heaven was secure.
Also today, we saw a 79-year-old Quiché-speaking lady, Isabel, who was brought in by her family in a wheelchair. She had recently begun swelling more on her legs. She apparently had some heart tests done about a year ago, but the family said they did not have those records anymore. She was very quiet. The family explained that she has been depressed since her husband died about a year ago. She chooses to live alone rather than with other family members who live nearby. She does not want to give up her house. Labs showed a severe anemia for which transfusion was recommended. This is not something that we could offer her and she also was referred to the government hospital. However, she made it clear that she did not want to go. The family said that when they got home, they were going to gather all the children and have a family meeting about what to do. Juana, the nurse who usually translates the preaching sessions is a strong believer. I asked her to share the Gospel with Isabel in Quiché which she was glad to do. I told her that it didn’t matter if I could understand it, but the patient needed to know about Jesus in her language. Despite from what I could tell was a good presentation of the Gospel, Isabel said she was still not ready to accept Jesus into her heart. Please pray for Isabel that God would open her heart and allow her to receive forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus. And that he would provide for her medical needs. It is good to know that she has been given the invitation of the Gospel.