A THANKSGIVING BLESSING 11-21-10

 

Hello everyone!

Thank you all for taking the time to spend a few minutes learning about what it is like to be Christian medical missionaries on a remote island in the Philippines!

We want to wish everyone a happy and blessed Thanksgiving this year!

We consider each opportunity to provide care to the poorest of the poor a blessing from our Lord, Jesus Christ! We truly love to care for each and every patient and to share God’s love for them! For many it is their first time to receive quality medical care! Many have died or have suffered serious morbidity as a result of such a lack of medical care. All are truly grateful for the care that we provide by the power of our Lord, in His holy name and for His glory!

We want to sincerely thank each person who has visited our blog, told others around the world about our blog and encouraged them to take a look, for all who have and are including us in their prayers and to everyone who has opened their hearts and donated financially to our work here in Pilar Camotes, Cebu, Philippines! Without your support we would not be able to continue this most important work! God bless you all!!!!

	This is a picture of our little island. It is 2.5 miles wide and 10 miles long. It has a population of about 11,000 people. Almost all have a subsistence life style, living in native houses, fishing or farming for a living. They have no health insurance! We provide the only quality medical care on the island and provide not only their treatment, but their medications and their hospitalization, when required!
	This is a picture of a person using a carabao to deliver fire wood. The fields are also plowed by using a carabao and an old fashioned plow!
	Here people are drying the corn that they have harvested. They remove the kernels by hand and then place it on tarps that are placed beside the dirt road to dry.
	This is a closer look at one of the tarps filled with corn drying in the sun along the side of the dirt road. Once the corn has dried sufficiently, it will either be ground in a corm mill for corn meal or stored for use as seed corn for the next season.
	This is one of the many patients we have seen over the past month for bronchitis and asthma. There has been a significant increase in the number of patients with respiratory problems including TB! He was treated with bronchodilators and antibiotics and is now doing well!
	This woman has hypertension and bronchitis. We have been able to control her hypertension and resolve her bronchitis. She is one of the many people who we have treated lately! There has been an increase in the burning of vegetation one or more times a day to try to reduce the mosquitoes. This has been because of the increased risk of dengue fever! We believe this has been contributing to the increase in respiratory illness!
	This is a young man who had a history of asthma and due to the increased burning of vegetation to produce smoke to ward off the mosquitoes has had a significant increase in his asthma symptoms and their severity! With the availability of nebulizer treatments, bronchodilators, and steroid MDI’s he has been stabilized!
	The children have not been spared the increased respiratory illnesses! The next several photos are some of the many children and infants that we have treated for asthma, bronchitis and bronchiolitis!
	This is a photo of the little girl shown above and her mother, sister and my wife, Rhome. She is shown receiving a nebulizer treatment and you can tell that her mother is quite happy to have such medical resources available and that her daughter is responding well!
	This little girl is one of our neighbors. She presented with significant bronchitis, fever and a productive cough with yellow sputum.
	Here she is receiving one of her nebulizer treatments. She was also treated with antibiotics, Tylenol, and increased fluids. She is now doing very well and is back in school!
	This is a young mother and her infant daughter who she brought to us because of fever, cough and shortness of breath. Her examination was consistent with bronchiolitis. We treated her with Tylenol, nebulizer treatments, antibiotics and fluids. She is now asymptomatic and is quite happy and strong!
	Here is another young child who is recovering from bronchitis and both he and his mother are quite happy that the worst is over!
	This is another young mother and her infant daughter who has a history of asthma and that was experiencing  more frequent and severe asthma episodes since the increased burning of vegetation had started. She responded well to nebulizer treatments!
	Here is another young boy who was brought in for treatment of a worsening cough, fever and wheezing. His physical exam revealed that he had asthmatic bronchitis and he too responded well to appropriate treatment and is now doing much better!
	Here is a young boy receiving a nebulizer treatment for his bronchitis. You can see that his mother is happy that he is responding well! He is now well and back to school!
	Here are two sisters who were back for follow up for asthmatic bronchitis. At this point they were asymptomatic and were back to enjoying school and playing with the other children in the area!
	This young girl and the one in the next photograph both have significant conjunctivitis. There has been a literal epidemic of conjunctivitis on our island over the past month.
	This is another young woman with severe conjunctivitis! As I mentioned in discussing the case above, there has been an epidemic on our island, but, thanks to our Lord, we have successfully treated every case that has come to us for care and they have all been cured without complications!
	This is a young girl who came to us for treatment of a recurring draining abscess below her right jaw!
	This is a close up of the site. We cleaned the area and started her on antibiotics, but she has been lost to follow up. We are trying to locate her to insure she receives appropriate treatment!
	This is a young girl who has significant allergic reactions to the many mosquito bites that are all too common on our island. She now sleeps under a mosquito net, uses mosquito repellant and has been given appropriate combination Benadryl and  hydrocortisone cream to apply to the affected areas!
	This is a young girl who was brought to us for care by her mother! Unfortunately, she has microphthalmia with fibrosis and has almost no vision in her left eye. The following pictures show some close up views of her left eye and her evaluation by an EENT specialist.
	Here you can appreciate that her left eye is smaller than her normal right eye and that there is fibrosis of the cornea!
	This is another close up where the fibrosis can be better appreciated.
	Here she is being examined by the EENT specialist in Ormoc City on the island of Leyte!
	This is a 15 year old girl with multiple severe dental cavities requiring extractions and antibiotics. It is, unfortunately, the case with so many of the school children on our island! This is why we are undertaking a dental education and treatment project this February and we hope to be able to provide each child with education and a new toothbrush and toothpaste!
	This is a young mother who had a significant fear of dentists due to a rather barbaric dental procedure that she witnessed her mother undergo when she was a child. She had an almost completely eroded wisdom tooth that  required follow up for post extraction dental infection. She was treated with appropriate additional care and antibiotics and is now doing well!
	This is an elderly woman with hypertension and severe dental cavities which will require antibiotics and multiple extractions! We have started her on appropriate antihypertensive medications and antibiotics so that we can take her to a dentist in Ormoc City on the island of Leyte for her dental care!
	This patient came to us for left ear pain, swelling and drainage from her left ear. A large perforation of her ear drum was noted. We started her on antibiotics, topical and oral and transported her to Ormoc City where she was seen by an EENT specialist for evaluation and treatment for large perforation of tympanic membrane of left ear. She is showing good improvement now!
	This is a young woman with severe otitis media and otitis externa. She was treated with ear irrigation, topical and oral antibiotics and has shown marked improvement. We expect her to recover fully in the near future!
	This patient was 5 months pregnant and had a history of severe asthma with possible TB and a UTI. She subsequently had a miscarriage. While we were off of the island purchasing additional medical equipment she was evacuated by boat to Ormoc for worsening respiratory symptoms. Unfortunately, she died of respiratory failure!
	This gentleman has significant gouty arthritis of his left wrist and was treated with steroids on a tapering dose and has responded quite well!
	This is an elderly woman from up in the mountains. She had sustained a ground level fall about 5 days prior to being seen. She did not wish to have surgical inter-vention and so we splinted the wrist and also gave her a sling and plan to cast the fracture when the swelling decreases.
	This woman had sustained a spider bite and came to us for treatment. The picture below shows the site.
	There was some mild swelling surrounding the bite and surrounding erythema. She was treated conservatively and fully recovered within a few days!
	This is a patient with hypertension and noninsulin diabetes. We are checking her blood glucose level and counseling her on weight loss, diet, exercise and adjusting her medications.
	This is an elderly patient with a history of hypertension, but due to a lack of care and no financial resources to buy medications she had gone without treatment for an extended period of time. Now her blood pressure has markedly improved with proper medications!
	Here is yet another elderly woman with hypertension and noninsulin dependent diabetes. She too had been without treatment due to lack of financial resources and access to good care. She is now improving significantly after receiving proper medications and care!
	This is a local man who was involved in motorcycle accident late the night before. He had sustained a laceration and significant abrasions to his face, arm and leg/foot!
	This is some of the care we were able to provide, including care of the laceration, debridement of the abrasions, application  of topical antibiotic cream and dressings and the administration of oral antibiotics. He is now almost completely recovered and did not develop any wound infections!
	Here is a picture of us cleansing the wound on his left ankle.
	This is a young boy who fell out of a tree and sustained a scalp laceration that required suturing. He was quite fortunate that he did not sustain a concussion or other serious injury!
	This is a picture of the laceration prior to any treatment!
	This picture is after the area was prepped and scrubbed. We are injecting the area to be sutured with local anesthetic.
	Here we are closing the laceration with some sutures! Once we were finished closing the laceration we applied a sterile dressing. He is now doing well! The sutures have been removed and he did not develop any infection!
	This is a local fisherman who came to us for care for an injury to his right eye. He sustained some conjunctival irritation when a piece of the  fishing net material poked him in the eye. Previously he had sustained a corneal injury to the same eye that resulted in partial opacification of the cornea!
	This is a close up of his injured right eye that also shows the corneal scarring as well. He was treated conservatively and his injury resolved without complications!

 

As you can see, there is a tremendous need here on this remote island, and there are no local resources to provide the medical care that is so desperately needed!

It is ONLY through the prayers and giving Christian hearts of many who do not even know these people that we are able to be the “boots on the ground” and provide both spiritual healing, strength and comfort as well as physical healing, strength and comfort! At this time of year, and in this time of crisis around the world, we are especially thankful to our Lord, and to everyone who has and who continues to support this vital work in so many ways!

We ask that everyone would continue to include us and our work in their prayers, and for those who’s hearts are touched by God, to please donate whatever you can so that we can continue to provide care to the poorest of the poor and to lead them toward being able to self sufficiency through our other projects in the realm of agriculture!

All donations are fully tax deductable and can be made through our church in the US; Hilltop Community Church Carson City, Nevada! Their website is  http://www.hilltopchurch.net/   Their mailing address is Send mail to: 3588 Romans Road, Carson City, NV 89705. Their email address is sukari@hilltopchurch.net

As always, we encourage everyone to spread the word about our work and our blog to your friends, neighbors and coworkers and ask them to take a look for themselves! We also ask everyone to make comments on our blog so that we can try to improve it in everyway possible!

Until next time;

May God bless us, everyone!

Chip & Rhome Nuttall

pilarchip1@mac.com