Yesterday I got to confirm that the water cistern works! What a joy and a luxury!
This week I also got to meet with the parents of both of our cancer patients - Julisa Lux Alvarez and Tomasa Chicoj Salvador. Both of these young, strong girls are doing great. Julisa's blood results have been very positive and her white blood counts are up. She is reducing from weekly treatments to now monthly treatments. She has grown some of her hair back, has more color in her face and lips and has a normal level of energy.
Tomasa also has her hair back and also looks very healthy and happy. She has started back to school and seems excited to have been able to do that. She had a checkup this week and she will be starting some new meds of which I will find out more next week. She is scheduled for a CT scan in 2 weeks.
A couple of weeks ago I also went to visit the Children's Cancer Hospital in Guatemala and met with the director of marketing and fundraising. This hospital does not have the nice aesthetics that you would see in the US; however, it does appear some powerful work is happening in this hospital. They work in partnership with St Jude’s Children’s Hospital and most of the physicians receive specialty training there. There is never an empty bed in this small hospital. In speaking with this representative, in the past the mortality rate was 7 out of 10. Now the mortality rate is only 3 out of 10. That is an excellent outcome and they pray for continue improvements in these outcomes. She also told me that Guatemala has an abnormally high incidence of retinoblastomas in children and most from the highland areas. The feeling is it could be due to the environments in which they live, high exposure to dust, smoke and sun. They are one out of maybe 10 hospitals worldwide that has some special device to freeze the retinoblastoma from growing as they start treatments. I do not know the details here, but sounded pretty impressive. Some of the bigger companies such as Paiz (Guatemala Wal-Mart), Pollo Campero, Banco Industrial are all part of a foundation raising funds for the development of this hospital and children’s cancer programs. Very interesting and hopeful. She says even though they are full 100% of the time and are busting at the seams with outpatient treatments, they estimate they are only reaching 50% of the population they should be serving. Pretty eye opening.
Please pray for this hospital, called UNOP - Unidad National Oncologia Pediatra, that God will continue to work wonders as he has for these 2 young girls. Sorry no pictures but I will have a chance to get pictures in the next 2 weeks.
God bless!
PS. Please pray for our travel as well. We drive to Mexico tomorrow after Lisa gets off work (sometime between 10 and 2) to renew our visas and return on Sunday. So a quick and tiring trip, especially for Lisa who is post call. She will have ample opportunity to sleep in the car, provided the driver is not too crazy. :)
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