Update on Tomasa Chicoj and Julisa Lux

Here are some updated photos of Tomasa and Julisa, the 2 young cancer patients that we have been working with for some time now.

Tomasa came to us about 2 years ago with a recurrent retinoblastoma tumor. She underwent treatment of radiation and chemotherpay until August of 2007. Latest reports indicate she is doing extremely well. We have not received any prognosis but she appears to be doing great and has started to attend school and only comes for visits every few months.

Before picture

Picture from last week with father, Pedro, and brother, Manuel.

Julisa came to us almost 2 years ago as well with onset of lukemia. She too has been undergoing chemotherapy for quite a bit of time and is not down to once a month visits.

Before Picture - during her chemotherapy treatments.

Picture from Wednesday of this week. She came to the church in Pacaja Xesic to participate in a children's program.

Lisa - Prayer Answered!

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

-- Ephesians 6:13

We received this verse via a daily verse distribution over the last few days as well as many emails of encouragement from all over. This verse helps us place the correct perspective of who we should trust and the responses we received emphasized this calling for faith and perseverance in God. Your responses and expression of love for us has been overwhelming and we so greatly appreciate everyone who has been praying for us. We received our first answer to prayer on Friday afternoon when Lisa found out that the Saturday session may not obligatory. Then later that night more good news that there was no session on Sunday either! So Lisa was able to come off call on Saturday morning around 11am and rest the remainder of the day. We had a dinner with some visitors and friends Saturday night which offered her much more encouragement. Then yesterday, we were able to attend worship service and Lisa was able to spend some time studying and preparing for this coming week. This morning we started early, leaving the house about 4:30am so she could prepare for morning rounds, but she is a new person.

Thank you for your prayers, encouragement, support and faith! Just 6 weeks to go!

Humbled and thankful,
Kemmel and Lisa Dunham

Please pray for Lisa

We try not to post blogs that have a negative tone and we have always tried to keep a positive attitude towards this year of service Lisa is enduring. However, today was a bad day for Lisa. We would like to request prayers on her behalf to lift her up and provide her with a peace that only God can provide.

Lisa is struggling through these last 2 months of service. In May she was in a surgery rotation and had to work every day of the month, plus was on call every 3rd night (which means at the hospital for 36-40 hours with no sleep). This month was supposed to get better and she was going to have Sunday's off. Last Sunday we did have off and made the trip to Mexico to renew our visas so that was not very restful (although nice to just leave the city) and we still did not get to go to a worship service as when we returned on Sunday she had to go to the hospital to review her patients prior to Monday. Today she found out that they have some class session tonight for 2-3 hours and then also 2 4 hour class sessions on Saturday and Sunday. She was hoping to use the time tonight to prepare for a class she must present tomorrow on Coronary Syndromes. She tries to stay positive but she is at wits end with how crazy and disorganized and inconsiderate of a person’s time this service is. The time is much worse than anything she experienced in her process in the US. She is going on almost 2 months with not being able to attend a worship service which also takes its toll spiritually.

What pressures her the most if she does not pass these last 6 months, then all she has done is for not. This means not missing any days that she is requested to be present, passing all of the tests, being prepared for each rounds with the residents and attendings, being a good care giver, preparing all the classes she must teach, and as we like to say - staying under the radar.

This leaves me very sad as well as there is nothing I can do to assist her besides just try to provide some moral support and ensure that everything outside the hospital is smooth. We consider ourselves pretty tough people, flexible, by the grace of God, able to withstand many things, but this situation is really starting to affect us and mostly Lisa as I just have the ripple effect of feeling discouraged for her.

Thank you for all of your prayers, we need it. And we apologize for bearing our discouragement.

Mexico and more

On Saturday around 11am we headed to Mexico to renew our visas. The trip was faster than we had planned which was nice. We made it to Tapachula in under 6 hours even after stopping to eat on the way. Our time at the border coming and going was less than 15 minutes each time, so yet another positive to the trip. At the border we were asked why we only stayed one night and on explanation we received our stamp and were sent on our way, no questions asked - just a "thank you" for the service provided here in Guatemala.

We forgot our camera but had a couple of photo ops that would have been great. One was a English translation mix up. There was a gas station with a huge sign that stated "Stop Truck" instead of "Truck Stop". Makes us wonder how many of these language mistakes we make each and every day that causes a good laugh with the locals we work with.

Then on arrival back in the city we had to get some photos of Lisa and next to the photo place is a Cemaco, which is a home store. As I waited for Lisa I walked around a bit and noticed there was a snow shovel on display with some other "home tools" and for sale???? Do not think that will be used much!

On a clinic note, Sheri hosted the first clinic with the church in Chutzurob on Saturday. Chutzurob is close to Chuchipaca (for those who have been there). The results were excellent with around 5-10 members of the church helping and attending to 48 patients. See Sheri's blog for more info - http://www.sheriinguate.blogspot.com/.

On Monday Dr. Stan Sizemore and his wife Donna and a couple of their adult kids will be joining the work for a couple of weeks. We are excited to get to meet them and work with them. They lived in Guatemala many years back before Stan was a physician. Also in a couple of weeks, Pat Hile and Dr. Richard Rheinbolt will be here on another mobile medical team. Pat, Richard and the Sizemore's were all here around the same time in the 1970's or so. Will be a great reunion for these US missionaries and also the local members that they worked with.

The MET students are finishing up their final days in Chichi and in Montellano and will be changing locations on Tuesday. The month has been great so far and the students have had some great experiences that will change their lives and the lives of those they have served and lived with.

Water Confirmed / Chichi Patients

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. :)

Gracias a Dios - We have water!

After months of wondering what was wrong with the water cistern and pump, God lead us to a person that could help us out and boy did he. I explained our situation to him on Friday and that the construction guys doing the cistern did not seem very confident about their pump and plumbing skills; however they had given it their best shot (and probably did better than I would have). This man, Jose, looked at the pump and how everything was assembled and quickly made some suggestions which included changing some of the piping to a wider diameter, changing the motor to the pump (as the other one fried - probably because it ran without water for a little while), changing something with the electrical and a couple of other suggestions. So after cutting some of the concrete and re-plumbing the cistern, he called me today and said we are good to go. They reworked everything, checked the pressures and all is working. And.... he will guarantee his work. I go back Thursday to check it out. The cost top fix was much less than expected, so another big blessing - less than $60 for labor and less than $70 for material. Would have cost me much more stateside!

We have been praying about this problem for awhile so that we could find a solution, especially since I am not in Chichi more than a day and a half at a time and not much of a "fixit man" - I am more of a find the "fix-it man". The saying here is always, "Primero Dios", which is another way of saying "trust in God". As always, He is there to resolve our issues.

JUNE!

First, please open a new window and check out Sheri's blog regarding the MET program as some of the students are giving her messages to post. Sheri also continues to post almost daily regarding the clinics in the highlands.

http://www.sheriinguate.blogspot.com/

Yesterday was a big day for Lisa as it was her last day in the surgery rotation. We celebrated yesterday afternoon at Chili's. Just 2 months left! She will now start her internal medicine rotations which will last for 2 months - June and July.


Her first month rotation will be in the infectious disease men's ward. She reviewed some the patients yesterday and has about 20 patients right now. Her patients will be patients with HIV, Tuberculosis, stomach bleeds and other infectious diseases. In one way this is good as she will learn more about the infectious diseases that affect the people of Guatemala and how they are treated; however, there are also risks, so please pray for safety and that everyone takes the proper precautions. She will share the ward with another intern so that will be helpful. This month will require much more study time as the upper year residents and physicians tend to pimp the students more and about any or all of their patients. Please pray that God will provide her knowledge and a good memory!

She goes on call today, so she did not get a day of rest after being post call Friday and working Saturday; however, next Sunday she will have off. We will most likely head to Mexico next Saturday afternoon to renew our visas and come back on Sunday - if we do not have any problems at the border. We kind of have 2 sensitive themes going on right now - one we do not want to ruffle the waters of the intern year to obtain her license and 2 we do not want to ruffle anything with immigration. So we are trying to stay under the radar but remain legal. If we go to immigration and request a special extension to the visa we may get questions as to why she cannot leave and why is she getting a license without a residency, etc. Everything we have heard indicates you can and we are volunteers so it should not matter - unless you get someone who causes problems. If we ask for a second day off with the internship, then it can also create problems as the other interns and residents will be short staffed in an already over-worked, under-represented environment and one does not want to cause problems with any of the residents or the attending physicians. So, since she has a day and half we think we can make a run to the border and stay under the radar which we prefer.

We were hoping to get a cheap flight to Mexico City as 2 weeks ago a round trip ticket was only $100, but now they are back up to normal - $300-$400. We could not book before as we did not know what her schedule would be. Either way it should work out - by car or by plane, although by plane would have been great!

We pray that everyone has a great Lord's day as to Him be the glory and the honor forever and ever. God is good!