Our feet are back on US soil.  After leaving San Pedro Sula (The murder capital of the world) we arrived in good ol’ Houston, Texas (which is apparently the ‘air-conditioning capital of the world,’ a welcome accommodation in light of where we were coming from). Continue reading →

Dear Friends,

Ok, gonna’ rip the bandaid…

If you’ve been following our blog you likely know that we have signed up to work here for another year, after realizing God still has us where he wants us for now.

Our ministry is changing lives by meeting medical needs in a rural Honduras community, by educating the children, by providing homes to children who have been abandoned or abused, and most importantly by sharing Hope. Continue reading →

Recently, I had a really rough weekend.  The ER was relentless with one patient after another, the Infirmary was jam-packed with sick people, and the OB ward proved to be steadily occupied.   And so, Saturday morning it was fitting when Bertha came in to the obstetric ward for a labor evaluation.  I grabbed her chart and looked things over.  Her dates showed that she was way too early to be having her baby, only a little past 31 weeks of pregnancy (40 is normal, right?).  I figured she must be having a few Braxton Hicks contractions (just some warm-up practice contractions).  However, a quick exam revealed that her cervix (the opening to her uterus) was dilated.  So the bad news was that it appeared she was in early labor with a baby that was going to be very premature.  Worse news was that the measurements of the baby appeared even younger than we thought.

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They brought the poor kid in, a gaping wound smeared across his forehead.  His eyebrow was sagging open, and the meat beneath was pushing his eyelid closed.  Bone could be seen at the bottom of the bloody trough.  What could have caused such a nasty wound?  A machete?  That would be a good guess, but no.  Black panther claws?  No, they are mostly extinct around here, and only 6 percent of jaguars have the all black coloring.  Hmm.  Japanese Ninja throwing stars?  wrong again.  Gee, what causes about 89% of all the injuries we see at the hospital.  Yep.  Moto accident… Continue reading →

It was pouring rain this morning, and so Owen was hoping it would rain so much that school would be cancelled (during the rainy season, people cannot cross the rivers due to the strong currents, and so school is often cancelled).  I joked with him that the only way he was missing school today was if it snowed.

And then, a funny thing happened.   Continue reading →

The nurses called me today to attend to a young man who had been shot twice.  (and this time I understood what she said, whoohoo!)  Actually, he had 38 projectiles in his body that I could count, despite only being shot twice.  The assailants had used a shotgun.  Luckily, they were far enough away that the pellets had dispersed and didn’t penetrate deep enough to puncture lung, significant blood vessels, or bone.  This poor fellow tells me it was done by one of the gangs (Maras), who were trying to steal his ‘work’.  He made his way 4 hours to come to our hospital for care.   Continue reading →

For over a month we have been trying to solve the mystery of the ‘ghost stench.’ There is a foul, sickeningly ripe odor that emanates from the refrigerator every time we open the door.  Our investigation of this enigma started with cleaning the entire fridge out, looking for that long, lost, slightly-opened tupperware container of rotting Phad Thai.  This failed to reveal the pungent source.   So our ironic trips to the refrigerator for some savory morsel of yumminess continued to be thwarted by the putrid bouquet that accompanied every attempt to open the door. Continue reading →

Here are a couple stories, sort of ‘one step forward, and 2 steps back…’

When we committed to service here at LDL, I was asked if I do obstetric medicine.  Hmm.  Well, I used to but I haven’t delivered a baby in over 8 years.  Do you need me to do OB, would it be helpful?  Yes?  Ok, sure, I’ll dust off my ol’ baby-catchin’ skills and give it a crack.  I have to say that it has been a very rewarding, enjoyable, and sometimes terrifying experience. Continue reading →

One of my least favorite diagnoses as a doctor is dizziness.  There are just so many things that can cause it.  Most of those processes are hard to diagnose definitively, and some of them can drag on for weeks, or even be permanent.  The treatments are marginally effective at best, often.  So imagine my disgruntlement when I, myself, contracted a frustrating case of vertigo. Continue reading →

I’ve had a little dry spell as far as blog-worthy cases.  Sometimes that’s a good thing.  I would never consider it lucky to be an ‘interesting case,’ in medicine.

Yesterday, however, met my quota for the week of ‘tough’ cases.
We get whole families who travel from afar to seek our help.  It’s not unusual to see 6 people from the same household who have travelled for hours to the Gringo hospital.  Sometimes they come w/o an appointment even, just hoping they will be seen.    Usually there is at least one or two of them with something serious, and the others are tagging along and just want whatever ails them peeked at while they’re here.  Well, yesterday I had a heart-wrenching ‘2 for 1’ special.
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