In 2009 (I could not find a more recent study) Honduras was listed as having the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Central America. 30% of all mothers right now are under the age of 18, and in rural areas the pregnancy rate is as high as 19.5%. Why am a so concerned about this? I experienced what this means to the baby first hand a couple weeks ago. Many of you have read about Maritza and have been praying for her. When she left our house in January she had just gotten pregnant by her boyfriend who was in his thirties. He left her soon after and she moved home to live with her 10 brothers and sisters, one niece and her parents. Two weeks before her due date she came and ask for money to buy things for the baby. Her parents have no money, since neither of them work. I ask her to make a list of what she needed and then I purchased the bare necessities: 1 pair of pajamas, 2 shirts, 2 pants, blankets, cloth diapers and pins, rags for wipes and diaper rash cream. I cried as I purchased them knowing that this was all the baby had to his name and I had bought that much for my kids the first month that I was pregnant. She called again when she went to the hospital to have the baby and ask if I would visit her. I was shocked by the maternity ward. There were 2 women per twin bed- 8 to a room and 3 rooms with that many women. It was one of the most disgusting places I have ever been. Windows were open with no screens so flies covered the sick and the babies, there was mold everywhere and a loud cat was making its way down the hall. As I talked with her she said her mom would not be coming to the hospital because she had too much to do at home. Maritza was scared and nervous and asked me to come back that evening. When I returned I brought shampoo, conditioner, soap and a towel as the hospital does not provide any of that and Martiza did not have the foresight to bring things with her. I continued to visit her the 4 days she was in the hospital while she waited to give birth. The doctors admitted her to induce since she was 2 weeks over due, but she had not heard back from them so she just laid there waiting. After a week, one of the doctors called and said she had been induced and would be having the baby soon. When I went the next day to check on her I was even more shocked. I held Maritza’s healthy baby boy while she took a shower. Next to her in bed was a young girl who was trying to clean her baby with a cotton ball. She then wrapped the baby back up in the same blanket it had pooped in because she didn’t have another nor did she have diapers or wipes. I then checked Martiza’s baby closer. It was wrapped in a sheet from her bed… no clothes, no diaper, nor had he been bathed after birth. I asked where his clothes were and she forgot to bring them. What is his name? We don’t know, she hasn’t made up her mind so for now it is just Baby. I will never understand a society that does not think enough in advance to take care of their children, give them a name or better yet, not have a child if they have no way to provide. Maritza is not alone in this lack of planning and immaturity. I cried almost everyday when I left the hospital because of how depressing it was. I watched mothers expressionless faces nurse their babies and hand them back to the nurses. It was so different from the joy in faces of new mothers in the US. There was no talk of how cute or sweet their baby was, or what they would become as they got older. No, none of that because there is little hope for the future of the children here. They are born into poverty, will be raised in poverty by teenage mothers and no fathers, and will then have children of their own as teenagers. Please pray for this nation of fatherless children and young mothers.
Nathalie Update
Nathalie is a girl in my class who many of you have heard us talk about and have been praying for. She has one leg shorter than the other due to an infection when she was three days old and she does not have a hip socket on one side. The options for helping her in Honduras are very limited. Nathalie has been seen by the best hospital here in Honduras and they are unable to perform the services that she requires.
We began the application process for Scottish Rite in October. We had been told twice since then that they would not see Nathalie until she is older. My mom called and asked that they watch a video of her walking and then reconsider. They gave her a tentative no but agreed to watch the video. They called this week and decided to accept her as a patient! This means that all her medical expenses are taken care of and the doctors that see her will be specialist in orthopedics and some of the best in Texas. This is a huge blessing and we are so thankful. Thank you so much for those who have been praying for her and who have donated to help her. As of this week we have received a $1000 scholarship for her flight through Wings of Hope and have had $1900 given to her for expenses. This will cover most of her expenses but we still need to raise around $600. Please continue to be in prayer as we finish fundraising. Thanks for the continued prayers in this situation.
Nathalie Oliva
Nathalie is a girl in my class who many of you have heard us talk about and have been praying for. She has one leg shorter than the other due to an infection when she was three days old and she does not have a hip socket on one side. The options for helping her in Honduras are very limited. Nathalie has been seen by the best hospital here in Honduras and they are unable to perform the services that she requires.
So since October I have been trying to find a doctor to help her in the United States. We began by applying to the Scottish Rite Hospital. The process took several months but they told us last month that they would like to do surgery (several of them) on Nathalie but not until she is around 9, at which time they will reconsider her case.
She is only 5 now and this leaves about 3 or 4 years without medical treatment and Nathalie is in a lot pain. I have talked to Dr. Evans, an Orthopedic surgeon in Stephenville. Dr. Evans also has volunteered with the Scottish Rite Hospital, is fluent in Spanish and has a heart for kids. He has agreed to see her after reading the Scottish Rite’s report. This is not to get a second opinion or to have the surgery, as he agrees with the report he read but it is to explore options until she is old enough for surgery. What the doctor is thinking without having seen her is that a crutch or a shoe lift might would help alleviate some of the pain. She will hopefully be seeing him in July and staying for several weeks with my parents in Bluff Dale in case she needs to see paraprofessionals to learn how to use the crutches, etc.
As you well know, even with insurance seeing a private doctor is going to be really expensive and their insurance does not work outside of Honduras. I am praying that God will lay Nathalie on the hearts of the medical professionals and they see her at a reduce cost. Of course I will also be applying/ have applied for grants to help with the flight cost and extra expenses that will occur. Please pray that God will lay the pathway for the cost of her treatment and for the medical professionals that she will need to see. Please also pray for her parents, that they would have peace in the care that Nathalie receives. They are very nervous because the U.S. is a foreign country to them, but they are also so excited and thankful that she will be receiving the care that she needs. Please continue to pray for Nathalie as I try to organize her trip. I have not ever done something like this so please pray for wisdom for me to know where to look for grants and fundraising. Thank you so much for those who have already lifted up prayers, please continue to do so.
Tyler
For the first time since being overseas one of us is really sick. Tyler has always struggled with asthma but normally we are able to keep it under control. For 10 days now though he has really had a hard time and our normal methods of taking care of him are not working. After listening to him cough for so many days and not being able to find a doctor here, I called a doctor in Texas. He had come here on a mission trip back in July, right after we moved here, and left me his email. He was so great to walk me through what I needed to do differently. Of course, it is all a guessing game as to what is wrong since there are no x-ray machines here in Gracias. I felt bad for the doctor. I am sure it is not easy to diagnose a kid you have never seen over the phone but he was great about it. By just listening to Tyler’s symptoms he thinks that Tyler has a-typical pneumonia. We have been this route before so I was not too worried after the doctor gave me all the prescriptions that I needed to get Tyler on. So we went looking today. One of the things on the list was a scale so that we can know how much medicine to give him. We looked in four stores to no avail. We asked around and were told that they were not sold here. We are going to try to find a doctor with one this afternoon. We were also looking for antibiotics, albuterol and nasal spray. I found none of them. I have made a list of what we do have here and hopefully one of those will work. I know that God is in control but it is much easier to believe that when things are going easy. However regardless of how I feel, my God is in control and cares for my children. Please pray that He will help us find the right medication and heal Tyler quickly.
Our First Emergency
After grocery shopping on Friday evening Tyler informed us that he was bored and needed to see if his friend Josiah was at Parque Copa. As I walked out the door we saw Tyler going down the stairs, via outside the railing from our second floor. We informed him that we did not particularly like him going down in manner. His reply was, “It’s not that high”, and then he bailed off the top of the steps. We had to go back into the house to grab something before going to park. When we attempted to leave for the second time we walked out and noticed that Tyler was sitting on the 10-foot wall separating the other apartments in our complex. I thought to myself, I should tell him to get down, but then I thought, no he needs to climb and get it out of his system.
We made it to the park and began visiting with our friends, while Tyler and Emma set out to find their friends. We were at the park less than 15 minutes and I heard Tyler screaming- the kind you when you know something is wrong. We searched to locate the origin of the screams, finally finding him at the bottom of the monkey bars. He really loves the monkey bars. His grandfather is always calling him a monkey and he loves to live up to that nickname, often times swinging like a monkey, climbing like a monkey, talking like a monkey, and hanging like a monkey. It was hanging like a monkey he chose to imitate on Friday.
Apparently Tyler was hanging upside down by his knees and according to him, he raised up to grab the bars and slipped because the bars were wet from the sprinkling we had received about half an hour earlier. He slipped and dove head first into the ground. During the decent he put his hands out to break the fall and his right hand hit the ground first. The force of his fall forced his hand to bend backwards. When we finally got him calmed down he told us his leg hurt and so did his hand. According to him, he could not even stand. After some encouragement we finally got him to his feet and ruled out a broken leg. The hand, arm, wrist was our next examination.
Tyler has been hurt many times before. Most of the injuries he has suffered in the past have been dramatic but not serious. This time, however, I could tell he was hurting, BAD! So we decided to get him home. Our first plan was to just ice it, but on the way home, I decided we needed to get him to see our new friends the Wilson’s. Nathan and Audrey Wilson have been such a blessing to our family. Nathan is a pediatrician, who is part of a team of five families going to Peru. The Wilson’s welcomed us into their home and Dr. Wilson began an exam of Tyler. After a complete exam, Dr. Wilson suggested that we go to the emergency room.
Ironically, our insurance ended in January and we have been applying for new insurance, but it has not gone into effect yet. So here we are on a Friday night, in a foreign country, without insurance, and Tyler probably has a broken arm. One of the words we have learned is “tranquillo”, which means breath and relax. After Dr. Wilson give us his prognosis and the insurance thought hit me, I simply said, “Tranquillo”, under my breath. The Wilsons were having a house church worship service that night and extended an invitation to Emma to attend while we went to the hospital. Emma gladly accepted and we were out the door and on our way to the hospital.
We walked home and got the necessary hospital items (Credit cards, passports, books, iPods, etc). While Kristi was gathering the hospital bag, I called our neighbors the Sills, who called a taxi for us. Within 5 minutes the taxi was at the door. As Tyler climbed in the driver just stared at him. My first thought is “Oh, this guys is going to think I beat my kid”. So before I even got into the taxi through a mixture of sign language and Spanish I explained that “Mi hijo……. I did not know the word for break so I made a breaking motion with my hands and then finished the sentence with…. Brazo o meneque (reinforcing with a pointed finger to my own hand and wrist). The driver did not know any English, but you could see sympathy on his face as he drove. He told us several times he was trying to get there as fast as possible. Occasionally he would reach behind the seat and pat Tyler on his leg and nod his head, as if he was saying, “It’s ok, I’m sorry. I’m hurrying. It will be ok”.
The driver got us there in less than 10 minutes -considering seatbelts do not exist here, we were glad to arrive quickly and safely. A volunteer at the front door pointed us in the right direction to emergency room. When we walked through the doors Kristi Tyler and sat down while I tried to figure out how to communicate our need. When I stepped up the desk, I asked the receptionist if she spoke English. She said no, but motioned for another guy behind the admission desk. His name was Jonathan and he did speak English. He helped me get registered. We did not have all the information they requested, but they were very kind and worked us in. He said a doctor would call us when it was our turn.
I sat down and reminded my self, “tranquillo”. Kristi was reading Tyler and book as he lay in her lap. I began to listen to the story trying to figure out what was going on in the book. Before I could put the story together a doctor called for Tyler. The doctor spoke very little English. He looked at Tyler’s arm and then asked where we were from. We told him Texas. He laughed and rambled off a sentence to Kristi. He had to repeat it several times, each time we picked up a new word until finally we were able to understand what he was saying. He asked Kristi if when she wore high hills in Texas, did the heel sink into the ground and oil come up. He gave us directions to radiology to get an X-ray and instructed us to bring the X-rays back to him when we were finished.
We moved around the hospital and found radiology not too far from the ER. We walked up to the desk and handed the receptionist instructions from the doctor. They told us it would be a few minutes and that we needed to pay before x-ray. So I handed her the card and she ran it through. I keep trying to guess in my head what it was going to be. $250.00, $500.00, $100.00? She handed me the receipt to sign and I saw a figure of 35,000. I did the math quickly in my head. The total was going to be $700.00. NO! It is going to be $70.00 US. We were so surprised as we took our seats to wait for the radiology specialist to call Tyler’s name. Tyler had been working on reading his first book and completing a book report for call. He choose Hank the Cow dog. So while we waited we read some of his book. It took less then 10 minutes for Tyler’s name to be called. Kristi went with him while I waited. They reappeared 5 minutes later and within another 5 minutes we had the x-rays in our hand. We went back to the emergency room waiting area to see the doctor. While we waited we tried to give our amateur diagnosis. Kristi said she had seen many of her dad’s x-rays growing up and she gave the diagnosis of a broken arm, pointing to the x-ray. Within a few minutes we were back in the doctor’s office waiting to hear his professional opinion.
Kristi was right; Tyler had broken his ulna, one of two bones in his forearm, just above the wrist. The doctor told us that he was going to put Tyler in a cast for three weeks. We looked at each other and asked,
“Is that all” He told us that if we had broken our arm it would be four weeks and his arm would take six weeks to recover. Tyler climbed up on the exam table while the doctor prepared the cast. After the doctor put the cast on Tyler’s arm he made Tyler an origami frog. We both were very impressed with the loving attention and time the doctor took with Tyler. Before we left he gave us a date of March 14th to come back to have the cast removed.
We thanked the doctor and returned to the waiting room. As I got into line to pay I realize that it had taken less than an hour to register, see the doctor, get an x-ray, and set the cast. The only thing we had left to do was pay for the ER visit. The cashier handed me the bill and it equaled a whopping $70.00.
Despite the fact that we did not have insurance and that we were in foreign country, we made it out of there for $150.00 including the taxi fee to and from the hospital. Tyler did a great job! He was very brave and was very strong. Neither Kristi nor I have had a broken bone, but we were both impressed with how Tyler handled himself. Hopefully this will be the last broken bone he has.