New Teeth For Our Children…and Other Medical Blessings

As I wrote before, over the past two years we have tried and tried to get medical help for our children but to no avail.  However, through a series of God inspired events and connections, that all changed last month.  In the course of just one day, we were able to establish a relationship withThe Shalom Foundation and from there other connections grew.  Within a week we had strategized a plan to get our children medical attention taking advantage of surgical and medical teams that were visiting Guatemala.  I could spend a few paragraphs narrating an account of every email, meeting, and phone call, but suffice to say, the Lord was in this and He brought it all together in a perfectly knitted tapestry in His timing, starting with Carlos.

Carlos receiving therapy

Carlos is an incredibly bright 7 year child, but he has Cerebral Palsy.  Like many children that have CP, the tendons in his legs tighten as he gets older.  Specifically, the tendons in his Achilles heel, hamstring, and groin area are tighter than normal.  Having the tendon in his Achilles heel tight means his feet don’t form 90 degree angles with his legs making him walk on his toes.  His hamstrings are tight which doesn’t allow him to stretch his leg completely, making him walk with his knees bent.  Finally, the tendons in his groin area are pulling his legs together (called scissoring), causing this legs to overlap one another.  Eventually, the tightening in this area can pull his legs out of his hip socket.

Despite having CP, Carlos has made great progress in the past like learning how to walk and go to the bathroom by himself.  Through physical therapy and a lot of determination, Carlos has made the best out of his situation.  But as we think long term and work toward Carlos’ independence, we know that his best option will be surgically correcting his problem and last week we were able to take the first steps in this direction.

Carlos with Dr. Stanley in San Raymundo

After an hour drive north, Carlos and I arrived at a small village called San Raymundo.  Here a medical team organized through Refuge International was seeing patients and doing surgery.  Among the doctors was an orthopedic surgeon that had agreed to see Carlos and give us his evaluation.  After a short wait, Dr. Stanley took us into a room and began his evaluation on Carlos.  The first thing he noticed was that Carlos was remarkably flexible despite having CP.  It was obvious that the physical therapy that we do with Carlos twice a day is helping him tremendously and Dr. Stanley congratulated us on it.  However it was also obvious that Carlos needs surgery.  While there are other options like botox treatment, Carlos has reached a stage where it would no longer be beneficial, and surgery is the only option.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t a pediatric orthopedic surgeon on the team so we weren’t able to get anything done, but the evaluation from the doctor was extremely helpful and pointed us in the right direction.

Juan Jose and Carlos before surgery

Two days after taking Carlos to his evaluation, we had our dental surgery appointment for Juan Jose and Carlos.  Coming into this appointment both of these boys had serious dental problems that have always been a concern for us.  After a dental check up last year, we discovered that Juan Jose had more than 20 cavities and Carlos around 14!  On top of this, due to the severity and amount of work that needed to be done, both boys would need to put under general anesthesia.  When we first began to look into, some dentists were estimating the entire process would cost around $4000!  Of course, you can’t put a price on personal health, and we tried to raise the funds, but the complete money never came it.  However, God is good, and His plan far surpasses what we can imagine, and as we took Juan Jose and Carlos into the dentist office, we knew we would walk out without having to pay a penny!

Carlos and Juan Jose with the dental team from Ariden

At 7:30 am we entered the office and by 11:10 am they were done.  Overall, Juan Jose received 13 metal crowns, 5 pulpotomies, and 7 extractions while Carlos received 7 crowns, 3 fillings, 2 sealants, and 4 extractions.  Both of our children did very well and were so brave.  We couldn’t be prouder of them.  (Below you can read the Facebook updates that I did during the entire event).

Looking forward, next week we have another appointment for Carlos to see a group of physical and occupational therapists from Belmont University.   Hopefully they will have some leads on where we can get him surgery.  We are also trying to find an ENT that will be able to remove Miguel’s tonsils since they are extremely large (but thankfully not infected).

Please continue to pray for our little ones as we do our best to provide for them all their health needs.  This month has been such a blessing as we have stepped back and watched the Lord work.  We are forever grateful to Him to orchestrated everything and to the many people that played a part in all of this.  Here are a few of their names:

• The Shalom Foundation
• Link For Health
• Dr. Mike Kadera
• Ariden Dental Clinics
• Dr. Edwin Perez
• Refuge International
• Dr. Stanley
• Belmont University

Thank you for your part in all of this.