Friday!

We all scooted off in different directions yesterday. Kemmel and Sheri headed to Antigua where she will stay the night and head back to the States for a week. Kemmel then went to run errands in the City and made it back, thankfully, without any problems. Things have been a little dangerous in the city lately and we are always thankful when we get back home.

Josefina, Manuel, Tomas (medical team) and Marcos and Martina (dental team) headed out to La Estancia. Hopefully they were able to attend patients. As this is Semana Santa season, that area is normally very involved in the activities. The brothers of the church where we hold clinic are also bakers, so this is a very busy part of the year for them baking semana santa bread.

Juan and Gaspar and Mauri and I went to Paxot II for clinic. It started out slow, but picked up quickly. We seemed to be running a special on ear washing, so the guys got a lot of practice today! One 17 year old girl came in with her mom reporting that on Tuesday she heard a sudden loud noise in her ear and fainted for several minutes. She was fine after, but they were afraid it would happen again. I did a full exam on her and found no cardiac or neurological abnormalities. But, I did find something in her right ear; so I sent her to the ear-wash specialist (Gaspar) and a small beetle came out! Another patient, about 60 years old told us he hadn't been able to hear for about 3 months. No ear pain, but could feel something in the ears. Sure enough he had a serious ear wax impaction in both sides. I referred him to our other ear-wash specialist (Juan). Our patient left very satisfied!

No wonder she fainted!

We also got to see our patient Jaris, 7 years old, with cerebral palsy. The last time I saw him was over a year ago and was pretty much inactive, just carried around by him mom (grandmother, actually). Yesterday, he was sitting on the floor, crawling around and even pulled himself up to a chair. He even walked with assistance! His mom said he had been doing this for about a year now. He can only say mama and papa, but he seems to respond when you talk to him. Let's keep this family in our prayers, as it is a hard job taking care of a child with these special needs, and very few resources to help.

Jaris, with his sisters, having a hearty laugh.

Today is the first day of our Holy Week break--YEA. We are planning a trip to Lake Atitlan at a place that has cabins on the side of the cliff and spectacular views of the lake and volcanos. We will be there for a couple of nights and and then back home to work around the house. I made cinnamon rolls and we are taking our coffee maker so we can enjoy the view of the lake in the mornings with our coffee.