New Clinic Pocohil

This month we have started a few new clinics in areas that are more populated and are located on what we would consider major roads in the area of Chichicastenango.  One of these clinics is in Pocoil and the house of Manuel.  Many who have visited either Chichi or Clinica Ezell know Manuel as he works with us as a tri-lingual translator.  We began speaking with Manuel last year regarding the interest in his community and after reviewing the ideas with the community leaders and receiving an approval, we started the first clinic on Feb 21st.

Pocoil is located up a different mountain road than any clinics we have ever served so it is new territory for us.  Yesterday was our second clinic and so far we are getting interest and people are passing the word around.  We are always amazed about how many people want prayers and how many people would like for us to follow-up and pray for them in their home and how many churches do not practice this.  In each clinic (all clinics) our ministry staff speak and counsel multiple people who are experiencing family struggles, violence, or anxiety.

Please pray with us that God will be glorified through this new clinic and we will be able to bring His compassion and mercy to people who need it just as much as we do and that God will raise up more local people in this area to serve as ministers with us.

Here are some pictures of the clinic.

This is Manuel, whose family is the host of this clinic and graciously opens his home as a service to his community.  A great, humble servant.

HTI Group - ABC Clinics and Clinic in Chuchuca

This past week we had a group of physician, dentist, nurse, and non-medical volunteers join us to assist with clinics of the ABC children and normal community clinics.  We did not get many photos, but you can also visit Sheri's website for other photos - http://sheriinguate.blogspot.com/  .

 

On Saturday around 18 people consisting of US volunteers and Guatemala staff headed up to the villages of Chuchuca and Xejox to host the clinics and to spend the night.  We had a great 2 clinics, got to spend more time in fellowship with the brothers and sisters of the area, and enjoyed the excitement of the kids in those 2 communities. 

 

One of our goals this year is to reduce the amount of children who fail their grade and we are off to a good start!  Last year we had over 50 children fail their grade and this year we think we may have less than 15 and maybe less than 10!  In Chuchuca, which is one of the more remote villages we had no one fail!  Not sure about Xejox yet, but will know soon enough.  We also had 100% pass in the community of La Palma and only 2 not pass in the community of Paxot 2.  In Paxot 2, at mid year we had almost 6 failing so we consider that a win!

Here are some pics of the clinic in Chuchuca.

Sandra and Micaela and ABC student Marta helping with suction

 Pedro P helping with suction as well.  Pedro is one of the first in middle school and continues to do well with a greater than 85% average.

 

 This is the younger Pedro, in 6th grade and normally a A student.

 We put the miniseries Bible on the wall with a projector and explained it was in English and they would not understand what was being said but they were still glued to the show and telling us about the stories.

 

This area has been affected by quite a bit of rain so we are glad we did not make the trek 2 weeks ago or we would have had a bunch of mud!  One time  more than a year ago our team got stuck about 4 times on the way up to the villages.

 Beautiful views

 

More mud, but almost dry, thank the Lord.

New Territory

We had clinic out in the town of Chicua II today.  Our new brother in Christ, Manuel is on the town counsel and has wanted us to come out and use the clinic/hospital facility that they have in their town, which has been sitting empty for several years.  After several dry runs due to competing activities we finally had a decent showing of patients.  We suspect there will be more in the future as there was a school meeting today and continued murmurings of unrest regarding the sacking of the mayor in Chichi.  Apparently people are leery of walking around town when manifestations are forming for fear of being forced into joining the crowd of protesters.  But we did have a nice group of patients including one of my regulars from Clinica Caris who lives out there.

 

We are praying for this clinic to grow and for our presence to be well accepted so that we will have more opportunities to visit and share the gospel with folks in the area. 

Lisa and Kemmel with long time Caris patient, Maria.  We are now in her town - nice..

Sandra and Maria setting up dental extraction area

Marcos and Martina ready for cleanings and dental restoration

Sheri in one of the equipped clinic rooms

Manuel, Ceci and Cesar prepping for vitals, lab and pharmacy.  Cesar was our radio announcement writer today..

Manuel, new brother in Christ and community leader.  We were also hosted by 2 ladies from the women's committee.  Very helpful and great hosts and extremely interested in what can happen in the future.

 

Julisa - leukemia patient

Yesterday we got to see Julisa for the first time in a while.  Julisa came to us in 2007 with a blood count below 10 and soon after was diagnosed with leukemia.  Her family followed the recommendations to go to the hospital and has been undergoing treatments for the last 5 years.  There are times we she does much better than others.  Last year she had a relapse and was not able to attend school, but this year she is doing much better, her defenses and blood counts are up and she has started second grade and is able to stay in school and do her homework when she heads off to the hospital in the city.  Here is a post with some of her history:

http://kemmelandlisa.blogspot.com/2011/02/julisa-lux-alvarez-4-years-later.html

Here is a picture of her yesterday. Growing up, learning to read and even has her curls back.  Please continue to pray for Julisa and her family.  We continue to help them with the cost of travel to the city for her treatments as she continues to go once a month for either treatments or testing.  Unfortunately, it is never with the same physician which complicates knowing her history, but the family presses on with the faith in God that only He is in control.  This is a beautiful, God loving family.

If you wish to help with some of these expenses for Julisa or others that we help through our charity fund to help with costs related to medical care, please let us know. 

On Mission With Harding University

 

Our week has been shared with a great team from the Harding Univeristy PA school, Pharmacy School and some pre-med students. They jumped right in from the start as we tackled our well-child check-ups for the ABC kiddos. We were also pretty ambitious this year and tried spreading out the team over several more communities, and for the most part it worked great! We covered 14 different clinics in 4 days! The students have been doing vital signs, nutrition assessment, physical exams and basic labs and pharmacy. They also took on the very important task of one-on-one hand washing and teeth brushing demonstrations with their patients. We had some very long days, but thanks to this team and their supervising providers, Gary Hill, P.A., Eric Dahl, M.D. and Dannie Middleton, M.D., we covered 8 of our 11 ABC communities and more than 250 kids! Great job! In addition to working with our wonderful staff and visiting team, we were joined by Dra. Josefina Lux, donating her time as well this week. She is a blessing to this ministry still and loved by her patients.

 

Dr. Middleton with Jaime

 

Say "Ahhhh"

Gary Hill with Lauren and Joe translating.

Drew getting vitals on Erica

Hyejin and Alyssa selling drugs!

Me and Josefina in Xepocol

Women's Health

One of our clinical focuses in our ministry is Women's Health.  In Guatemala, the overall health of women can be negatively affected by numerous factors: chronic malnutrition, illiteracy, young age of first sexual activity, high childbirth rates, high maternal mortality rates and high cervical cancer rates. Here is a list of services that Health Talents offers.  Currently our staff serves in over 30 communities through local churches, in addition to our central base clinics, Clinica Caris and Clinica Ezell. Our hope is to continue expanding in the future.  If you would like to contribute to this work, just click on DONATE and it will take you to the Health Talents International donations form.  Thank you!

Medical consults  (Mobile community clinics, Clinica Caris, Clinica Ezell)
General medicine
Pap smears and GYN consults
Prenatal care

Dental Services (Mobile community clinics, Clinica Caris, Clinica Ezell)
General consults
Teeth cleaning
Fillings
Dental prosthetics

Bible Seminars for Women

Community Education Program
Bible study classes
Menopause
Mental/Emotional Health
Nutrition
Diabetes
Sex Education/Abuse Prevention
Prenatal education (Nutrition, Warning signs/Emergency planning, Breast Feeding)
Family Planning
Dental Hygeine

Gynecological surgery at Clinica Ezell
Fully equipped surgical facility and volunteer GYN specialists from the U.S.

New brother in Christ

After clinic yesterday in Zacualpa, Tomas, Enrique and Ruben had the opportunity to follow-up with a man they and Gaspar have been evangelizing for awhile and had the privilege to take a side trip to the river to for a baptism.   No time like the present!!  We welcome this new brother in Christ and look forward to continue building a relationship with him!

It is good to be back to work. Kemmel and I took some admin. days to knock out some reports and some education material for next week's class. One of the lessons is on clean water--not to be taken lightly here. As the rainy season is in full swing, there are days when the water comes out a nice chocolate milk color from the faucet. Despite the obvious risks, people around here like to take the occasional swig from the spigot. Of course the incidence of diarrhea always goes up during these months (hence the term "mal de mayo" to describe the runs).
Our other lesson is on blood donation and the basics of red blood cell life cycle. We are always amazed and frustrated at how few people will offer to donate blood for a family member or friend in time of need. Most patients end up having to pay people to donate, and if not, pay over $100 per unit of blood. So, we are going to have a class to dispell myths about donation and how quickly the body can recover afterward. There is even a Bible verse to trigger a little guilt!
Proverbs 3:27 Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act.
Today was a great day back in clinic. Some of my favorite patients came in--the local shepherdess (with a raging kidney infection--she couldn't get the headache and fever to go away, even after using the urine of a small child on her forehead last night!). Also one of our clinic neighbors brought in her new baby, born last week by c-section after hours of pushing. And also one of the brothers from Mactzul came in with an out-of-control feverblister on his mouth following a febrile illness 10 days ago--that left him deaf in one ear. After lavaging out several large plugs of wax, he was quite the happy camper. While waiting for the lavage, he told us about his daughter being in the hospital in the city for 3 weeks because of what sounds like Guillain Barre syndrome. After his long-winded report of her ups and downs and progress back at home, he ended with "well that's all the words I have to say". Sometimes people just need someone to listen for a while.

Finally, I talked with my other favorite patient who used to be a translator for some U.S. missionaries when she was younger (she's 74 now). She would be willing to give us some classes in Kiche and can read and write Kiche and even speaks a little English. We will work out maybe one afternoon a week to spend with her. I think it will be a help to her financially and lift her spirits a little as well.

Kemmel met with several people today, knocking out things on his to-do list, and finished up the last hour babysitting a little 7 month old girl while her mom had some dental work. They sat at the computer together happy as clams, printing out copies of flyers.

It's good to be back.

Good Day

We had a good day in Xepocol today. Our first patient was a nurse I know from the local health department who can't get off work to come see us on Thursdays at the central clinic, so I picked her up in town and took her out to our mobile clinic for the day. We caught up on news from the health department and who's still working and who's not. She's had an interesting bout of inflammatory poliarthritis with labs unremarkarable except for an elevated CRP (nonspecific for inflamation). She is already enrolled in the government health clinics but doesn't have a follow up appointment set up for November so she is a little depressed as she has started flaring up again. (that's right all you pro-Government Healthcare folks--she is waiting 3 months to get a follow up appointment with a general internist, not even a rheumatologist.) So we tweaked her anti-inflammatory meds and prayed with her, which she really appreciated.

The rest of the day was primarily pediatrics. Lots of upper respiratory infections and newborn checks. Nothing like little babies to put you in a great mood. One little girl remembered the Johnson's baby shampoo that her baby sister received as a newborn and keeps asking Gaspar if he has anymore. Well today, he surprised her with her very own little sample bottle and spent a couple of minutes to talk to her about frequent hand washing and bathing 2-3 times a week.

One of the last patients, I found out later, is a real troublemaker in town. This woman seemed nice enough to me and said she would bring in her mother next time. But apparently has been violent with her mother-in-law, landing the poor little old lady in the hospital. Her husband, who was a known drinker, fell into the edge of the water and drowned a couple of years ago. But she has recently accused a very nice man from the area of drowning her husband in the river because a "prophetess" in town said so. This man is a friend of Gaspar, and he has been terrified that people are going to lynch him on her say-so. Gaspar has been praying with him and counseling him and although doesn't want to get into trouble himself, feels obligated to stand up for this man. The woman has pretty much backed off on the accusations lately but everyone is still on guard. Needless to say, Gaspar was shocked when she came to clinic today. We decided that maybe God was working on her heart a little so we will keep her in our prayers. You never know who God puts in your path to influence or pray for.

Saturday

Okay, so as many who have worked with me have figured out, I am a little obsessive-compulsive about how I set up our exam space--in particular the hanging sheets we use as partitions. To have perfect feng shui harmony, I need to have the folded-over part of the sheet facing the inside of the exam room and all of the hems hanging straight and nicely aligned with each other.

Feng shui nightmare

Well, today we could not get good sheet participation, and after spending a good 15 minutes hanging and re-hanging, Nathan said, "This can't be good for your OCD--you're being awfully quiet!" Well, let's just say, I got to work on stretching my mental health limits.

Anyway, it didn't stop us from seeing patients, and we took care of 2 girls with pnuemonia and one of our favorite little guys who abraded his cornea on a nail. We sent him home with antibiotic drops and a make-shift pirate's patch. Josefina will recheck his eye on Monday.

Miguel the pirate

Esther and Holly were feeling puny today with sinus trouble and gastro intestinal distress, so we got them fixed up with some meds, too.

Pizza, anyone?

Kemmel got to spend the day with the Guatemalan Board of Directors meeting in Clinica Caris this month. They hashed out ways to improve parent responsibilty in the ABC families and discussed other operational issues. We even got delivered a bag of groceries that Violeta Campos bought for us in the Capital. If there is anything better than grocery shopping in the Capital, it's sending in an order and having it delivered to your door!

Tomorrow we enjoy our Sunday morning at home and lunch with Manuel Sut's family in Paxot, before worship services.