I had hoped to start this with a nice philosophical piece, but that isn't going to happen.
As my Facebook friends and family know, we missed a connection in Atlanta and had to spend a night in Guatemala City, New Year's night, delaying our arrival in Santiago Atitlan by almost 24 hours. I missed a C-section New Year's night that had to be sent to the government hospital 90 min away since no one was here who could do it. Not to feel unuseful, though, the consult for a primary C-section scheduled to be talked to on Tuesday morning, showed up needing an emergency section in the wee hours Monday morning. Tuesday was then a scheduled repeat section, Wednesday was an indicated induction that delivered, with some dramatic features, on Thursday.
Today's challenge was a patient who needed to be delivered at 34-ish weeks (instead of the normal 37 to 41 weeks), which is too early for us to handle the baby. I made the mistake of treating her headache with Tylenol so that she then decided that she wanted to go home instead of deal with the underlying high blood pressure. It took over 2 hours of persuasion in 3 languages by 2-3 nurses, 4 doctors and somebody from the government health office who came out from downtown to finally get her loaded into an ambulance headed for the government hospital in Soloila.
The "other OB/Gyn" scheduled to be here most of the time I am turned out to be a pre-med who WANTS to be an OB/Gyn. Needless to say, I am taking all the call she was scheduled for and my own as well. That alternating schedule looked SO nice! We have more hope for the 4th year OB/Gyn resident scheduled to arrive tomorrow or Sunday. I've actually communicated with her residency director, and 2 interns already here who know her say she is coming, so I think she is for real.
Here's hoping for a little less drama for the weekend. We probably won't be able to go to Xela for the Sunday market this weekend, but if the resident is comfortable, I might make it there for the Thursday market next week before we come home.
