Sydney's room

Here is Sydney's room makeover. We have very white walls in our house. And for years, Sydney has been asking us to paint her room--but since we have a habit of moving every few years we just haven't done it. So we told her that when we get to Shell we would paint her room. She held us to our promise and I (Heather) painted her room.
I've never painted before. Mike has been our resident painter since that was his summer job for years during college. So I just took it for granted that one day you had a white wall and the next it was a nice, pretty color.

Well, it was a bit harder than that. And I have great respect for all of you who love to paint and change the colors in your houses from time to time. Maybe it was the first day--when me and the kids decided to paint while Mike was on call. Painting with kids is not easy! We managed to keep most of the paint on the walls and not too much on each other or the furniture. Maybe it was the fact that I didn't have a ladder and kept climbing up on a chair to reach the ceiling. But after the first day/ the first coat--I was less than impressed. Streaky and messy looking. But look what a difference a second coat makes--and this time without help from the kids =)
Well, you know what's next. Sam's room. I'm taking a break for a day or two. Then we'll try and tackle that one.

Healing

One reason both Mike and I went into Family Practice is the chance to get to work with and get to know families. To make relationships with patients that go beyond the results of their blood tests--and to help in times of sickness, both physical and emotional. The latter always being more challenging and more delicate.
I had my first taste of working with a family yesterday in clinic--that definitely pushed my limits and forced me to cry out to God for the wisdom and words to say to help this broken family. A dear little girl, her mother who is still reeling from the death of her first-born son 3 years ago and the toll that has taken on her, her marriage and her family, and the dear abuelita (grandmother) with some serious health problems of her own, but a bigger concern for the well-being of her daughter.
I know that God's Spirit was present during our visit--and yet my spanish seemed so inadequate and my wisdom so limited to speak into her life. Please pray for this dear family--that God's presence would be real and would continue to heal their broken lives with His peace and His love.

Back at work

Well we now have a couple of weeks under our belts back at work as doctors. We have felt many emotions during the transition (which I'm sure will last a lot longer than 2 weeks). I have really enjoyed being back in clinic, sitting in on morning report, talking about patients and using the "medical" part of my brain once again. But I have found that after a morning or full day of trying to communicate well with my patients in Spanish I am beat, worn-out, exhausted. Sadly, the other day at clinic I think my fatigue caught up with me and I could not keep my dates straight--saying noviembre (november) instead of septiembre(september) over and over--which greatly confused my pregnant patient who was hoping to have her baby in september (her due date) and not wait another 2 months!
And while I am sure in Malawi many of our patients had parasitic infections--they are rampant here. Itoo succumbed to a one of the wonderful stomach bugs--and have responded to medicine. Luckily I did not experience what many of our patients experience here in the hospital--that when they are sick and not eating--their parasites/worms start crawling out of their mouths or coming out their bottoms. Kind of gross--yes. But super common! Mike even had a patient in the hospital with so many worms in his intestines that they plugged up his gall bladder and the surgeon had to remove his gallbladder along with all of his worms.
All to say, it's good to be practicing medicine and it's definitely interesting.

"firsts"

Well, we have a few new "firsts" today. It's the first day of school for Sydney and Sam. Sydney is starting 3rd grade and Sam is in 2nd grade. They are attending Nate Saint Memorial School--a missionary school that was the vision of Nate Saint, a missionary who was martyred in the jungles east of Shell in the 50's. There are about 30 kids in the whole school (grade 1-8). Sam is in a room with 1st and 2nd graders and Sydney is in the 3rd and 4th grade classroom.


Mike also has a "first" of his own today. He is taking call today for the first time at the hospital. It is his first call night in about 4 years since we only did clinic work in Malawi. It is also his first call in Spanish--thankfully he has some very good medical students and residents working alongside him tonight to show him the ropes.

We are thankful to God for his blessings--to get us here to Ecuador and to guide us through the adjustments of living and working in another country and culture.

Saturday morning walk

We had a beautiful Saturday morning this weekend. The sun was out and we could see the "big"mountains in the distance. Usually these snowcapped mountains are covered by clouds--but every once in awhile we get a pretty view. Sangay is in fact a volcano and is one of the active volcanoes here in Ecuador.


Another interesting site this morning was the recent slaughter of a pig by one of the local butchers. Isn't he huge! Sorry, if you get a bit queasy in the stomach don't look at the pic.

This isn't the butcher we have been using--although we could have had some fresh pork that day I guess.