Good news!

Yesterday was Lisa's last day on her current rotation and she made it through. They took their test yesterday and she made a 91 so she was pretty delighted with that. Also, and this is the best news, she was assigned to the "Clinica Ninos Sanos" for the next month. This is the external consult for children, so basically an outpatient clinic where they also see patients who come in to be referred to a specialist or that need surgery, extra services, etc. This is excellent news for her as this is the environment that she prefers. Plus, not to mention that she heard they get off work by 1 or 2 pm each day. We will not so much keep our fingers crossed for that, but 4pm would be a good improvement. She will continue to be on call every 4th night.

She was speaking with another one of the interns who informed her that the attending physicians are extremely pleased with her work as she is very compassionate and responsible in the care she provides. Another plus for her.

Just to continue our posts of 80's music which is so popular here, we enjoyed eating breakfast today accompanied by Survivor, Peter ... (lead singer from Chicago) and Pat Benatar. The other day the big one was Air Supply and the Bee Gees.

Please continue to see Sheri's blogs regarding the clinics - www.sheriinguate.blogspot.com. Dr. Josefina also has a rotation of clinics and all clinics seem to be doing well, minus some small ones that we still struggle with. We are in the process of starting a radio announcement, so hopefully that will start this week. We have had some incidences of increased violence in the Chichi area with 3 murders in the last month, so please pray for peace and security in the area. We are going to change some of our schedules so that our office assistant, Mauri, spends less time in the clinic alone to ensure some additional precautions. This is just to ask for your prayers, overall this is still an extremely safe place to live, just every once in awhile you have something like this occur.

Also on a sad note, last week the son of a good friend, Pedro Calel from Mactzul 6, died. We are not sure of the cause but it was unexpected so maybe some type of tumor or strange occurrence. He was 15 or 16 years old. Pedro is one of the leaders of the churches of the area and is one of the most compassionate people we know. He is always around to pray with patients and to greet us with a warm smile.

On the side of good news, I spoke with the father of Tomasa Chicoj Salvador yesterday. She is the child with the eye tumor or actually, the child that had the eye tumor - this is one of the small miracles God has let us observe. Her progress has been great and the physicians indicated to them that all is well and she will have another checkup in June. We will be contacting the physician to see what exactly "well" means, but to be off treatment for 6 months is pretty good! We also saw Tomasa and she looks great, just did not have my camera with me. She is growing hair again and looks pretty happy. Please continue to keep that family in your prayers.

Still no photos, hard to carry a camera around in the city and once you have seen a photo of the apartment, not much else to get excited about. :)

Today we receive a group from Pepperdine who will work with Sheri and Josefina for this next week. We are excited for the opportunity and we have all worked as a team to get prepared. Some of the group will be students returning from last year. Well, better run as I need to purchase some items before they arrive.

Have a good weekend. Our weekend will start after Lisa wakes up this afternoon.