Pediatriciian's June Visit

Jerrilyn, our wonderful pediatrician, visited in June with her family. They worked out of our new clinic building, in a church in San Andres, another church in Panajachel and for a couple of preschools . At the same time, we had a dentist named Ralph visiting with his daughter's youth group so he did clinics with Jerrilyn.

You will see from her report that their has been much improvement in the health of the children from our lunch and formula and incaparina programs. This has made us want to expand these programs to other communities. Here is her report.

As for my report.
"When we left Guatemala last March we felt that we had helped many families. We had given out over 20,000 prenatal vitamins and had left over 5000 children's vitamins for the feeding outreach programs as well as giving out thousands of multivitamins and calcium supplements. We had given hundreds of doses of antibiotics. We had talked with families about when to get help if they didn't see an improvement. When we returned this last June we could see the difference those things had made.
We had seen at least a dozen babies last visit who were starving to death drinking just 6-8 ounces of formula a day and often that was diluted. We brought measuring bottles and formula to hand out to the mothers. We learned last visit that all the baby bottles we saw from Guatemala have a 50cc and a 100cc mark but infant formula is made by the ounce or 30cc so that is a set up to have mixing problems. The good news is we saw or where able to follow up with people who saw those babies and they are doing well. The little boy with cleft lip and palate who was not growing is now growing and will qualify to have his surgery next month. It was amazing to see these mothers in line waiting to be seen with their babies-beaming-so proud to show me their healthy baby. They obviously could see the difference. We saw many families back when we had our first clinic at Los Robles. We saw about 150 people. Many people returned with other family members-saying the ones I brought last time are better so now I'm bringing my others. We met with the midwife who is monitoring blood pressures at the orphanage and left her hundreds of flow sheets to track blood pressure along with hundreds of urine dipsticks to check their urine for infection and protein or glucose. Urinary tract infections are common with little clean water and sanitation issues. This can be much more serious during pregnancy. She was excited to have the tools she needed to help these women. We also distributed a handout on how to minimize bleeding around delivery that was very well accepted.
At our last visit in March we examined all the kids who come to the tutoring program. About 90% showed clinical signs of anemia, this was reduced to about 30% at this last visit. This is huge. Not only does this result in them feeling better but they have better concentration at school and we talked to their teacher Gil who confirmed this was true. We were also able to bring Gil integrated textbooks for his tutoring program. He was excited to have help with a curiculum as he is teaching so many grades.
We saw a 7 year old girl our last visit with seizures since 3 months of age after meningitis. By her family's report at last visit she was constantly having seizures or sleeping. We brought her a 3 month supply of seizure medication in March at our visit in June we learned that she is no longer having seizures. Rather than sleeping all day she is smiling, more interactive with her family, starting to talk and bearing weight to learn to walk. She has had much damage after years of seizures but has made impressive developmental gains in just a few months. We are hopeful this will continue.
We saw a women with corneal scarring and an infection around her eye. I had seen pictures prior to our March visit so I brought her eyedrops that I thought would be helpful. After examining her I was sure they would help, she was doubtful. She reported that she went to Solala and they said there was nothing to be done. She had vision loss. At this visit her eye had cleared about 90% and vision likewise improved. Really lifechanging for this family.
After our last visit I began to wonder if many of the eye complaints might be vitamin a deficiency which is treatable. For our last clinics we had a vitamin handout that we gave to all the families and talked to everyone about this since there are so many Mayan languages. We saw one woman who said she had type 2 diabetes diagnosed less than a year ago which they told her would be controlled by diet and now she said she lost all her vision. This doesn't make sense for such a rapid progression in vision loss so I asked her to describe her vision loss. It was classic vitamin a deficiency. According to the World Health Organization Vitamin A deficiency is worldwide a leading cause of preventable blindness. The vitamins are helping.
We had our second day of clinics at San Andreas. We also saw about 150 people at this clinic. We again saw many people back who were obviously much improved since last visit. Infections that are now gone, babies eating better, again we saw that vitamins and iron did make a difference. We also handed out 87 pairs of shoes to those we saw without shoes at the clinic that day.
Our third day of clinics we held at the LDS chapel in Pana. This was our busiest day. The Crannies who were organizing the crowds estimated that we saw between 250-300 people. We were able to work longer that day because we were in town. We saw lots of people with pneumonias, several very severe cases. It didn't seem like they could have gone on much longer without help. We saw many pregnant women and in all three days of clinics we talked to them about things they could do that would help them have a healthier pregnancy. We brought with us over 30,000 prenatal vitamins we distributed in these three days along with hundreds of doses of antibiotics and over 10,000 children's multivitamins. We also brought thousands of calcium supplements and we brought iodine to purify the water. We brought enough iodine to purify 25,000 liters of water. We brought 87 cans of infant formula and we gave out 300 packets of oatmeal and dried milk.
The last day of our trip we went to San Antonio. We were contacted by Mayan Families who started a preschool there for the families who lost their homes in the mudslides. There were several children there they were worried about. We saw many malnourished children and several with pneumonias. We were able to give them the antibiotics they needed and talk to their parents or grandparents about their care. They are also starting a vitamin supplementation program that we are sure will be as successful as the one at Los Robles.
It is impossible to describe how much hope feeling better has brought these people. Clearly it helps to have a medical problem solved but so many were fearful that it wasn't just an ear infection etc. Seeing their children or themselves feeling better was an overwhelming experience. It really does make a difference to help them get the help they need. We feel like our trip brought them medicine and better health but hopefully also hope and love."


We need financial donors for materials for a new building in Panamache where the men will give us the land to build on and provide the labor. We need dental and medical equipment for our very sparsely furnished clinic. We need teams for construction, medical, dental and love. Contact me to help or push the donate button.

thanks
Vicki
20.vicki@gmail.com
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