Maikal is a five year old boy who was born without hands or feet.  His mother brought him to the Clinic soon after he was born, but after his first visit – we never saw him again.  He came in today with his mother and two siblings.  He is now in school and doing very well.  He gets around very well by walking on his knees.  His mother is trying to find some kind of protection or padding for his knees, which by now are well calloused.  He quickly wears holes in the pants of his school uniforms.  Please watch the videos below….Maikal doesn’t seem to realize that he is at a physical disadvantage.  He was racing his brother and sister on the patio the entire time he was at the Clinic.  Because many of the streets in San Lorenzo are still paved with rocks or rough surfaces, he doesn’t get to run around and play on tile very often….

We are hoping to help Maikal in two ways.  The first is simple.  We would like to get some form of knee pad that he can wear to cushion his knees when he walks.  His mother says he often complains that his knees hurt.

Our second goal is to get Maikal to a foundation in Quito that helps provide prostheses to patients who have lost arms or legs.  We will contact the foundation to see what needs to be done to get Maikal into the system.  We are hoping they might be able to provide some type of prosthesis for both his upper and lower extremities.

We will keep you updated on Maikal’s progress!

We are looking for a few good women (or men!) who are interested in sewing!  We have had many different work groups in San Lorenzo, but most of them have centered on either medical work or construction.

We are planning a small work team to help us with several different sewing projects at the Clinic.  The exact dates have not been set, but it will either be in late April or early May of this year.  My mother, Dixie, will be heading up the team.  Projects will include sheets, pillowcases, stuffed animals, surgical gowns, surgical drapes, hats, masks and shoe covers for the operating room….

Mom and Dad with a Clinic patient

Please let us know if you are interested in coming down to San Lorenzo to help!  You can write to us on the LAMB website, or you can write to me at scifrespletcher@yahoo.com.

I hope to hear from you!

Monday morning I had a woman come to the Clinic to see me about prolonged bleeding from her uterus.  She told me that over the past six months she has been bleeding very heavily.  During one six week period she bled every day, and in September she bled down to a hemoglobin of 5 (a woman’s hemoglobin is normally around 12 to 14), and required a transfusion of two units of blood.  She showed me an ultrasound that had been done in September, which showed a large, seven centimeter fibroid tumor within her uterine cavity.  Most fibroids are within the wall of the uterus, and therefore not really mobile.  This fibroid appeared to be on a stalk within the uterus, and was the logical source of my patient’s bleeding.

I had quite a surprise when I examined her.  Sometime over the past three months the intrauterine fibroid tumor had managed to squeeze through my patient’s cervix, much like a baby’s head coming through the birth canal.  When I did her pelvic exam, I found that the large mass was now prolapsed outside of the uterus (but not outside of the body) and easily palpable.

Examining her made the tumor bleed.  And she bled, and bled…….and bled.  I had a river coming out all over the bed, the floor, my sandles….even a little bit on the wall.  It soaked two blue towels and kept coming.  I called María Luisa in from across the hall to help me.  I tried to stem the flow, and María Luisa started talking to my patient about Jesus.  I had very few options.  I couldn’t take her to the operating room – I had no anesthesiologist.  I couldn’t give her blood – because we have no blood bank here in San Lorenzo.  The only thing I could do was pray.

María Luisa realized that we were in a bit of trouble, and asked me if she should pray.  I said yes.  When she said, “Amen,” – I took the blue towel away that I had been using to try to control the bleeding.  The bleeding had stopped.  All that was left was a little trickle of watery fluid.

God is so amazing.  And He is so good.  Once again He has shown His hand in a mighty way.

 San Lorenzo 

Afterward – we put an IV in Leidy, rehydrated her and then sent her to a local laboratory to have her blood drawn.  We told her to go home to Borbon (about an hour away) and we would check on her results.  There was no reason to keep her in San Lorenzo, as blood can not be obtained quickly here.  Her hemoglobin came back at 5.1.  We called her and told her she needed to go to Esmeraldas for a blood transfusion.

We will plan to operate on Leidy at the end of this month.  Please pray that we will be able to get everything coordinated for her surgery and that everything will go well.

In April, Dámarys and I travelled to the United States for LAMB’s annual Chili Supper.  While we were there, one of our Clinic employees suffered a painful loss.  Gonzalo has worked at the San Lorenzo Clinic for close to 15 years.  His wife Nancy cooks for us when we are operating and when we have visiting groups.  Their oldest son Darío had gone to work in the mines in a town near San Lorenzo.  On a Friday after work, Darío and a friend went down to the river.  It is near the end of the rainy season here in San Lorenzo, and so it had been raining heavily, and the river was high and the currents strong.  Darío wanted to go swimming.  His friend urged him not to, but Darío went into the river anyway.  He dove in, and his friend never saw him surface.  On Sunday, Gonzalo and Nancy were told that Darío had gone swimming and had not come out of the river.  On Monday Gonzalo joined a group of people who went out along the river and the adjacent towns to look for Darío.  They found his body on Tuesday.  Because his body had been in the river for five days, Gonzalo and Nancy were not able to have the wake that is customary here.  He was buried immediately upon his return to San Lorenzo.  Darío was 27.

Obviously this has been extremely difficult for Gonzalo and Nancy.  Gonzalo is now back at work, and Nancy has remained at home.  Please pray for the Holy Spirit’s comfort for their family and that their pain will be eased.

Darío at the Clinic Christmas party in 2002

Thank you so much for your prayers!

After I last wrote about Julio, he continued to improve a little bit each day.  His abdominal distention was a little less each day, and on Sunday I allowed him to have some soup and some more liquids.

Earlier this week I took his IV out and let him have some solid food.  He continued to do well – and we sent him home this week.  He and his wife were pleased with his progress, and also pleased to be able to go home.

Julio and his wife

Thank you for your support and your prayers!

This is the second installment in the story of building our new bodega.  In the first installment I forgot to mention one very important detail.  As we continue to grow here at the Clinic in San Lorenzo, we have put more effort into attracting more professionals to come and work with us.  Whether Ecuadorian or “foreigners” – most people prefer to live on the Clinic property.  San Lorenzo’s reputation is not stellar – and therefore people feel safer behind our concrete walls.  In the back of our minds we have entertained the idea of building a new house/apartment on the Clinic grounds.  But this has not made it anywhere near the top of our priority list.  However, as we made plans for the new bodega, we realized – why not put a second floor apartment on top of the bodega?  So – what started as a simple storage shed, is now planned to be a three room storage building on the first floor, with a second floor apartment above.  Here is what the building site looked like after we cleared off all the rubble from tearing down the wooden bodega…..

The building site for the bodega

Before we started building – we did soil studies to guide our construction.

Performing the soil studies for the bodega

We hired an engineer from Quito to bring a team to San Lorenzo to perform the soil studies.

Performing the soil studies at the site for the bodega

They took samples every meter down to a depth of 15 meters.  There were no real surprises.  In layman’s terms – the ground at the site was found to be quite hard, and we didn’t have to make any adjustments to the plans that we had drawn up.  So – now we were ready to begin construction!  This preparation work isn’t all that exciting, is it?  In the next installment I will introduce you to the men who are helping us with the construction, and show you the beginning of the work at the site!

Julio is a 45 year old man who first came to see me in February.  He is a Christian, and when he walked into the exam room, he exclaimed, “Varona de Dios!” when he saw me – which means – woman of God.  He suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen about four years ago – and due to the injuries he sustained, he was given a temporary ileostomy.  For those of you not familiar with an ileostomy – a piece of small intestine is brought out through the abdominal wall, and one’s bowel movements are emptied into a bag that is secured to the skin of the abdomen.  It is not the most desireable of situations, but necessary at times.  Quality ostomy appliances (the specialized bags that are used to collect the stool) can be hard for patients to obtain, or just too expensive.  That makes having an ilestomy an even more difficult thing with which to deal.  Julio had a thin plastic bag taped to his skin when he first came to the Clinic.  The tape often doesn’t stick well, the odor seeps easily through the thin plastic, and leaking around the tape or through a tear in the bag is a bothersome problem.  We gave Julio some proper ostomy appliances, showed him how to use them, and scheduled his surgery for March.

The operating room in San Lorenzo

We performed Julio’s surgery last week.  We took down the piece of bowel from his abdomen and sewed his intestine back together.  He did very well initially, and went home quickly.  However, on Wednesday of this week he came back with pain, dehydration and a distended abdomen, and we admitted him to the Clinic once again.  He has an ileus, which means that things are not moving well through his intestines yet.  Because of this he is not yet able to eat, and we must keep him on intravenous fluids.

He has certainly improved over the past two days, but he has not “opened up” yet – which means that his bowels still are not working well.

Our church has a prayer meeting every Friday night in the ministry area, which is directly behind the patient quarters.  Tonight Julio and his wife attended the prayer meeting – IV fluids and all!  They were encouraged by the service, and were well impressed with Pastor German’s preaching.

Please pray that Julio’s intestines will “open up” and begin to function normally, and that he can get back to a timely recovery.  Please also pray that no complications will develop.

Thank you for your help with Julio and his wife!  I’ll add an update over the next couple of days to let you know how he is doing.

Many of you know that one of our current projects at the San Lorenzo Clinic is the construction of a new bodega.  Bodega is one of those words in Spanish that just doesn’t have a good English word in translation.  A bodega is basically a storage area – and in our specific case it will be like a storage building.  Up until recently we had a bodega at the Clinic.  It was made out of wood and in very poor condition.  The floor boards had rotted, leaving a gaping hole – and it was often home to both snakes and rats.  For years we have wanted to replace it – but have not had the funds or opportunity.  This is what our old bodega looked like:

The old bodega at the San Lorenzo Clinic

This year our good friends from Southern Michigan offered to return to San Lorenzo to help with a project – and we knew just what to ask of them!  But before we could build – we had to get rid of the old structure.  So – we had a “minga” with our Clinic Employees.

The first stages of tearing down the old bodega

We first emptied out the bodega.  Some things we threw away, and others we saved.  And then we started the demolition work.  In the picture above you can see the hole in the wooden floor.  That was not part of tearing down the structure – that was the rotted out wood that had finally given way.

With all the walls down, Gonzalo began to tear down the support posts

Gonzalo took off the zinc roofing sheets, and then started on the support posts.  While he and María Luisa continued, Nancy, Angelita, Carmen and I took the old nails out of the planks and made different piles out of the wood.  Some we would be able to use again, and some was just garbage.

Everybody joined in the work!!

The pile that was left after Gonzalo pulled down the remaining supports

With everyone pitching in we made short work of tearing down the bodega.  It only took us about two hours to go from the first picture to the last.  The next day we sorted the rest of the wood and cleared everything from the site.

So our saga has begun!  Check back to see the next step in the construction of our new bodega.  I also have news on our week of eye surgery in February.

Well – you probaby figured out – that I forgot about my blog…..

I haven’t gotten used to being able to share my stories on the internet yet – but I promise to get better.

I have a lot of news to share, so if you would like to see what is going on here in San Lorenzo, check back tomorrow and over the next few days – I’ll have some new things for you to read, and pictures for you to look at as well.

For now – I will leave you with a picture of the volcano Cotopaxi, on a clear day from Quito.

Looking toward Cotopaxi on a clear day from Quito

More soon!

Graciela - outside the Clinic the day of her three week post-op visit

 Graciela is a 76 year old woman who came to see us at the Clinic in October.  She has high blood pressure, heart failure and persistent swelling in her lower legs.  She walks with a walker and had a difficult time climbing the stairs to get to the second floor for her appointment.  Graciela had uterine prolapse, which means that whenever she was on her feet, her uterus would “fall out” and be in a dependent position between her legs.  She had been to see other doctors over the past four years, all of whom told her that they would not operate on her.  They told her that because of her other medical problems, the risk of surgery was too high.

We had two visitors with us in November.  Dr. Suk Chang, an anesthesiologist from Michigan, and Dr. Marv Eastlund, a gynecologist from Fort Wayne.  We talked to Graciela about the potential risks of her surgery, and she wanted to proceed.  On November 8 we performed a vaginal hysterectomy with some other surgery to support her bladder and rectum.  She was up out of bed the day after surgery and never had any problems; she went home on November 11.  She came back for a post-op visit this week and looks wonderful.  She told me as she was leaving that she wishes she had come to us four years ago.

We have had continuous blessings from the Lord in our operating room here.  We have been able to do complicated procedures without the support of ancillary services.  We thank the Lord for sending us talented professionals to help in the Clinic from both here in Ecuador and from other countries.  And we recognize where all the credit goes.  God’s mighty hand has done marvelous things here – all the praise and glory to our almighty King!