Re-entry miracle- and record day in ER!

Edwar in October- very swollen!

Edwar this week, playful and all boy!

A bright memory of our reentry this past weekend to Honduras was a call from some fellow missionaries, asking us to stop by on the way up the hill to see a "surprise". We pulled in to see Edwar, a 6 year old with Acute lymphocytic leukemia, who I shared about in October. He came to us after a year of failure to be diagnosed in the public system, with total body pain, and looking like he had a terminal case of mumps. Just touch his skin to take his pulse hurt him. Dr. Judy diagnosed him with leukemia, and then began her search for treatment here in Honduras. The mom did the unthinkable- she took a bus to the capital city and entered a treatment program there. The child's father remained behind to work to have money for the treatment! As I was helping him dress for the long bus trip to the city for treatment, he'd said something like, "All I want to do is play someday"!  I told him when he got strong again, I would buy him a soccer ball. What a joy to have Heather whisper, "I have a new one that I just brought in from the US if you want to give it to him now!" So she made possible keeping my promise immediately. He has 2 more years of his chemo...

Rosalinda in front of the nursing school

Tho we had only arrived at Loma de Luz Sunday afternoon, we turned around and went back to Ceiba early Monday morning- to bring a new LPN student, Rosalinda, to her first day of classes. Her dad and one of her good friends, Sonia, also walked down the trail from the house to see her off. If one could can that joy and excitement...

 The hospital clinic is now only open Monday, wednesday, and Friday. We expect the other two days will be just ER, so light days. Today, a record was set when we began receiving patients from a pickup roll-over about 0930.  In our early days here, there was a similar accident on Independence Day when a pickup went up on a bank to make a U-turn and dumped all those who were hitching a ride on the back. We were very shortstaffed, as it was a weekend when we have our annual missionary conference about 6 hours from here, and most were in attendance. That day we had 7 patients at once. Today, we treated about 13! It was truly all hands on deck! By God's grace, we had no critical patients, and only had to admit 2. But it kept the surgeon busy all day, and was a quick re-orientation to the hospital for me. During the hours of patching and stitching and monitoring, we also had a child come in with a fractured arm from a fall from a tree, and an OB needing a postpartum surgery, so all in all, think it topped the charts for the busiest ER day in history here.