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.
