Saturday, May 31, 2014

Please pray for Yajaira

Please pray for Yajaira, Calix's little 3 year old cousin. When mom and dad were here in April, Yajaira was just a normal little girl who played with her brothers and sisters. Shortly thereafter, her family started to notice that her stomach started growing. They took her to the Centro de Salud (public health clinic), and she was treated for parasites. When that didn't work, and she kept getting bigger, they took her to the hospital. She looks like a little malnourished kid with skinny legs and arms and a very distended, hard belly. So after an abdominal ultrasound and an abdominal CT scan she was found to have a renal tumor, called a Wilms Tumor which is taking up about half of her abdomen.
Our Pediatrician made some phone calls and found a pediatric surgeon willing to do the surgery and the oncologist willing to treat her. (Thankful to have made these contacts with Dr. Judy about 2 months ago on a trip to explore options for our pediatric patients.) The family was sent one week later to San Pedro Sula to admit her to the cancer ward of the public hospital. I went with them to accompany them and help them get the care they needed.
Wednesday morning around 11:30, after a 6 hour bus trip, we arrived at the Pediatric emergency room of the public hospital in San Pedro Sula. The medical student that was attending patients, took us to see the doctor and they said there was no space, so she would have to be admitted to the emergency room. After waiting 4 hours to be admitted and nothing happening, we finally got her seen by a pediatrician (bc I went looking for help), who talked to the Oncologist and she was able to go home for the night. (So thankful they have family in San Pedro Sula) So the next morning we had to be at the Honduran children's cancer clinic at 7am. After review by the doctor, she was considered critical, because the tumor had started causing heart problems...tachycardia and a heart murmur. She was started on Chemotherapy that day (Thursday). They have to shrink the tumor with Chemo before they can take it out, because right now it is dangerously big to operate on.
Friday (yesterday), we had to go back to get a treatment plan. She will have 24 weeks of treatment. 10 weeks of Chemo therapy, with the surgery for the tumor around week 6 (if it has shrunk enough). Then every 3 weeks after that, she will need radiation therapy for the next 14 weeks.
So, please pray for the treatment to work, the tumor to shrink and for them to be able to easily take out the tumor. That Yajaira would resist the strong Chemo drugs she is being given and would have enough strength for the surgery in 6 weeks. Pray that the murmur they heard is just caused from the tumor, and she doesn't have heart problems as well that would require surgery or postpone the surgery for the tumor. Thankful I was able to go with them to help them get into the Honduran foundation for children with cancer and that this foundation exists and that they have wonderful doctors and nurses. God is so good and so faithful!
Yajaira-red shirt, picture taken last fall


Yard sale = new Sunday School classroom

Last year our church had a yard sale and made over $500 and was able to build a new Sunday school classroom. This year, we didn't have as much stuff, but we did another yard sale. We made about $275 and added it to the money from other activities and had enough to build our 3rd classroom.
Trying stuff on to see if it fits!

Yard sale...several tables of good stuff.

Because we made enough money in the yard sale, a week later, we started building the 3rd Sunday school classroom. I love to see our church get together to do a project and accomplish big things. These are people who don't have lots of money. But they have seen when we do activities to raise funds, we can make the money to do the projects that we want to accomplish.

About 10 guys from the surrounding communities helping us build.