It was a good week of clinics with pretty good turnout in most places.  The fair has come to town in several places, so just as in the States, we expect to see a lot of our patients opting to spend extra funds at the fair rather than at the clinic!  But all in all, not too bad.  Some friends of ours (Tomas and Tomasa) from Mactzul III came to clinic on Thursday, a little worried because Tomasa had missed a period last month despite using birth control.  Sure enough, the pregnancy test came out positive.  The problem is she is diabetic and they have had 5 children already.  Well, thankfully she is pretty careful about her diet, and has actually been diet-controlled for a few months, not needing medicine.  I showed them how to use a glucometer and sent them home with a box of strips and lots of prayer. 

Today we rounded out the week with a great clinic in Chuchipaca.  One of my favorite regular patients, an older lady with a bad congenital hip dysplasia and arthritis, brought in her young neighbor who had been sick all week with an ear infection.  After the visit, she hugged me and looked proud to have helped out her friend.

We finished early enough to be able to drive out to Mactzul III to check out the work on the letrine project for the church. It looked good and only lacked a couple of small details.  Thanks to the Donelson Church of Christ for your contribution of time, sweat and funds on this project.  Before we left, we saw our friend Tomas and asked him how his wife was doing with the glucometer.  He said, "well, sister, we were pretty happy yesterday with the fasting blood sugar at 103, but today after eating it shot way up to 125(still normal actually), so I guess she's not doing too well."  I quickly reminded him that we could expect a higher blood sugar after eating, and that I was very impressed with her tight diet control.  That lifted his spirits.  He gifted us some apples, and we headed on our way, greeting all of our friends along the road and waving back at little kids shouting out, "Hermano Kem-mol!" and "Doctora Alicia!"