Update on Willy - who was here at the Clinic last year!

Remember this blog from the end of our trip last year?:

Please keep our young friend Willie in mind as he is now in the hospital in Santo Domingo after riding with us fron San Juan.

Willy is eight years old and weighs only 28lbs. He has a congenital problem with his bowels known as Hirschprung's Disease and has recently developed diabetes. He was brought to the clinic at the same time as our team, so our medical team became involved in his care. He needs surgery to correct his bowel problem, but is currently too sick for the surgery. This week, his blood sugar has come down, and he feels much better, but still has a long way to go. He is travelling with us to Santo Domingo where he will be admitted to the hospital for continued care. Please keep Willy and his family in your prayers.

Here is an update!
Willy is doing well! He has gone from 28 pounds to 59 pounds!  Laura rode with us on our bus with Willy to the hospital in Santo Domingo as we were heading home, and they were able to get him stabilized and on the road to good health! He is learning to eat what a diabetic is allowed to eat! See picture below!!
- Laura with the Child Nutrition Team here updated his status for us and said Cora (her colleague - shown in picture of Willy) and everyone here are doing amazing things to help young moms understand and help properly feed their babies.

Willy in December 2012 :)        - I love BEFORE and AFTER pictures!!

Don't forget, we are switching over to the Solid Rock International Blog Site - don't miss out!! click the link and follow us there from now on!!!!  Solid Rock International Blog

In San Juan

 We arrived late morning after a 3+ hour drive from Santo Domingo. Our flight yesterday was about an hour late arriving, so once we checked in to the hotel Dan and Keri had pizza arrive for our dinner. It wasn't long after that many of us went to sleep after being up since meeting at church at 2:30am to load on the bus which took us to Greensboro. Planes leaving Roanoke cannot carry a group our size when we each check 2 bags - 26 x 2 = 52 large duffel bags full of vitamins, meds, operating room supplies, etc!

Tomorrow a team will head out to a Bario, the OR folks will get everything lined up to start surgeries and seeing patients, and the construction team will work on the water treatment building getting it ready for the next group who will install the filtration equipment and get it running (we broke ground on this project just last year in February!).

NOTE:We will be switching to the
Solid Rock Blog site at: http://guesthouse.solidrockinternational.org/

More soon.

March 2, 2013 1:00am
We are packing for our departure from Mountain Avenue at 2:45am. Drive to Greensboro, fly to Philadelphia, then to Santo Domingo all via USair. We arrive Saturday afternoon and will get some sleep! Sunday morning we will load up the small buses and head toward San Juan and the Guest House. Will miss George but having Elizabeth Smith with us will be great - habla espanol!
Adios amigos!

Success :)

Thanks to everyone for hard work and prayers.
Thanks especially to Bob and Jeanette who do such a great job patiently organizing everything.
If you would like to see alot of pictures, go here: http://photobucket.com/spresdr2012
Here is our group photo:

Friday - think of Willie

Please keep our young friend Willie in mind as he is now in the hospital in Santo Domingo after riding with us fron San Juan.

Willy is eight years old and weighs only 28lbs. He has a congenital problem with his bowels known as Hirschprung's Disease and has recently developed diabetes. He was brought to the clinic at the same time as our team, so our medical team became involved in his care. He needs surgery to correct his bowel problem, but is currently too sick for the surgery. This week, his blood sugar has come down, and he feels much better, but still has a long way to go. He is travelling with us to Santo Domingo where he will be admitted to the hospital for continued care. Please keep Willy and his family in your prayers.

Medical Summary 2012

The surgical team consisted of 3 surgeons (John Mann, Hugh Hagan and Bruce Long) who saw approximately 40 to 50 patients.
Two Barrio teams headed out each day and combined they saw approximately 650 patients. John Starr, Kipper Nottingham, Russ Delaney and Bill Kagey were the physicians on these days.
Doug Call and Charlie Coulter continued offering their prosthetics work and have measured one of their biggest number of patients for their next visit.
A unique patient named Willie touched everyone's hearts as he struggles with many issues.
Kerry and Dan have been awesome hosts working hard to make everything run smoothly.
We hope to collect photos and add them here soon!
Thanks for your thoughts and prayers.

February 2012 Trip - Barrio Destinations

Below shows where the general area of where the Guest House is located and the other map shows where the Barrio Teams Traveled to.

The map below shows the locations of the Barrios the medical teams worked this trip. The red arrows point to them with the Blue arrow showing San Juan. As you see, a couple of them were very close to the Haiti border - they believe they saw a few Haitians at these Barrios.

Destinations:

Los Copeyes

Bastidas

Guayabo

Jovayal

La Grana

El Corbaro

El Copey

El Hatice de las Charcae