Our Christmas 2010 Patients

 We want to take this opportunity to wish all of our friends and supporters a very merry Christmas season this year and to tell you all how very blessed we are to be medical missionaries here in the Philippines!

Thanks to your support and prayers and God’s abundant blessings we have been able to evangelize God’s word and deliver desperately needed medical care to the poorest of the poor! Lives have been saved, both spiritually and physically, severe illnesses have been cured and chronic illnesses are being treated!

These are just a few of our many patients seen this month! We are now seeing 15 to 30 patients almost every day. Some of them walk almost 10 miles to our home to be seen, though we are trying to establish a schedule to travel to the other villages so that care can be provided closer to their homes!

We pray that as you are preparing for this Christmas season that you remember the REAL reason for the season, that you hold your family and friends close, share Christ’s love and rejoice for the greatest gift we have ever received!

Thanks to your generosity and faithfulness to God’s word these patients and so many more have received the precious gift of good health and spiritual renewal, some for the first time in their lives! May God bless us, every one!

	This is a man who had chronic UTI symptoms but could not afford to be seen! He was found not only to have a urinary tract infection but  a chronic prostate infection. After receiving adequate antibiotic treatment, he is symptom free for the first time in a very long time!
	This is a very kind and humble elderly lady who lives up in the mountains without electricity or running water. She came to us complaining of severe right eye pain and decreased vision for a few days! As you will see in the following photos, that is an under statement!
	This is a close up of what her right eye looked like when we first examined her! We started her on topical antibiotics and arranged to take here to an EENT specialist on the next island the next day!
	Here she is being examined by the EENT specialist. He started her on two topical antibiotics and steroid eye drops. We are taking her back for her follow up visit today!
	This is an other very pleasant elderly lady who was found to have significant high blood pressure that was untreated and bilateral cataracts. Once we have her hypertension well controlled, we hope to be able to find financial resources to pay for here cataract surgery!
	This is a young woman who ask to be seen for  worsening eye sight. After examining her, we discovered that she had significant, untreated high blood pressure in addition to her complaint of worsening visual acuity!
	We began to treat her hypertension and took her to the EENT specialist who confirmed that, other than needing corrective glasses, her eyes were fine!
	Here she is after receiving her first and only pair of glasses! She now has excellent eye sight and can care for her children and husband and work in her garden and study her bible again! She asked we make sure that we thank all those who have generously donated to our medical mission and allowed her to have her hypertension treated and gave her back the gift of good vision and the ability to care for her family and to, once again, read God’s word!
	This is another elderly lady who asked to be seen for poor vision! We found that she had untreated hypertension and cataracts! We are now treating her hypertension and hope to soon have her evaluated for her cataracts!
	This middle aged woman has type II diabetes mellitus, however, she was often unable to buy the necessary  medications or have her blood sugars tested! We completed her examination, found that her blood sugar was over 300 and began treatment. She is now feeling much better, taking her medications regularly and keeping her follow up visits. Her blood sugars are now in the 120’s!
	This woman had a long history of type II diabetes with several complications due to her lack of financial resources to buy medications or pay for medical care or blood sugar testing. The reason she came to us for care was that she had injured her foot and it became infected!
	This is her right foot and as you can see she had previously had to have her great toe amputated due to severe infection as a result of the complications of here diabetes
	This is a photo of her left foot on the first day she came to us for treatment. The injury was infected, her blood sugar was over 300 and she was also hypertensive. She had not been taking any medications because she had no money! We cleaned her wounds, started antibiotics, diabetes and hypertension medications and scheduled her for follow up!
	This is a photo of her having a sterile dressing being applied to her infected left foot injury! She has been seen a few times in follow up, her infection is healing without problems, her hypertension is now under control and her diabetes is also under control!
	This woman came to us with a complaint of chronic pelvic and abdominal pain. She said that she had seen a doctor in the past and was told that she had pelvic inflammatory disease. She had been able to buy only about 1 week’s worth of antibiotic. We have been able to have her seen by a GYN doctor and a GI doctor on the next island. The ultrasound showed polycystic ovary disease and venous congestion of her uterus. She is now undergoing appropriate treatment
	This young mother has a history of hyperthyroidism. She was supposedly treated and required being started on thyroid replacement medication. She came to us complaining of headaches and palpitations. We have stopped her thyroid replacement medication and are treating her with a beta blocker and continuing to monitor her and will arrange for her to have her thyroid function levels checked.
	Here my wife, Rhome is giving this patient instructions on taking his high blood pressure medications, diet and exercise. She is also giving him the necessary instructions for his follow up appointments.
	This is  a young lady who wanted to be seen because she has had a mass on the side of her neck for a few years.
	Here is a close up of the right side of this patient’s neck. At present, my diagnosis is a branchial cleft cyst! We will need to schedule her for specialty consultation and possible surgery!
	We are continuing to see a significant number of patients, both young and old, with a variety of respiratory diseases. This is a young child with asthma that required nebulizer treatments. She is doing much better now, but will require ongoing asthma treatment for some time to come!
	Here is a teenage boy with asthma. He had a prior history but has seldom had the financial resources to be able to receive any sustained treatment! Hopefully, now that he is receiving care and medications through our Christian medical mission, he will be able to be treated appropriately and on an ongoing basis and to lead a a normal, productive life!
	Here we have a young girl who we have been treating for asthma. She is doing much better at this point, but again, will require ongoing medical care and medications if she is to have the opportunity to grow up healthy, attend school and become a healthy, productive adult!
	This is a young mother who is bringing her infant daughter back for a follow up appointment after she was treated for bronchiolitis! As you can tell from the mother’s smile, the infant is now doing very well!
	This is an elderly gentleman who has high blood pressure that is rarely treated do to his inability to afford medications. He also was a significant problem with arthritis in several joints. We were able to provide him with the necessary hypertension medications and his hypertension is now under much better control! We have been able to start him on ibuprofen for his arthritis symptoms now that his hypertension is under control and he is feeling much better!
This is a husband and wife who able to afford medications. Now blood pressures are under good	both have hypertension but who have seldom been  they are both on appropriate medications and their control and they are feeling much better!
	These next several photos are of a young girl with a severely infected skin rash! This girl lives on the far end of our island and had no medical care since the rash started about three or four days prior and had had no medical care! She had been carrying around a stray puppy who looked infected with the mites that cause mange! She developed a severe, itchy rash shortly after carrying this puppy around!
	These next photos are somewhat graphic so please be advised! This next photo is of her chest and abdomen and the infected puritic  rash. As you can tell by the expression on her poor face, she is a very uncomfortable and unhappy little girl!
	This is a photo of what can reasonably be shown of her groin area and you can see that this is a seriously infected rash that is very uncomfortable and need immediate treatment!
	This is a photo of the front of one of her legs which is also severely involved with this infected rash!
	Here is a photo of the posterior aspects of both of her legs and they are also involved and infected!
	In this photo you can see how wide spread this infected skin rash is and how severe it is, especially in this poor young child!
	This is a little broader view of this child’s back and again, you can appreciate how severe and wide spread this infected skin rash is and how urgently it needs treatment! We got her completely undressed, cleansed her all over with a antiseptic cleanser, thoroughly rinsed her off and then applied a light application of antibiotic and Benadryl cream! Then gave here some clean cloths that we had and started here on oral antibiotics as well. She is now doing a lot better!
	This is a young girl who came to us because she had developed a significant skin rash on he leg and it had slowly been getting worse!
	This is a close up of one of the lesions on here leg. I have a idea of the cause but I am also submitting the photo to other PA’s who work in dermatology for their opinion!
	This man presented to us with a significant swelling of his left cheek and jaw. it had been present for about 3 or 4 days and was getting worse! After examining the patient it looked as though he had a significant left parotitis! We started him on medications and appropriate ancillary treatments and will see him back tomorrow!
	This is a close up of his left cheek and jaw to try to give you an idea of the facial asymmetry and to the severity of his condition!
	This is  a local “medicine man” who sought treatment for a “constant noise” in his ear for the last several years. This, of course, was tinnitus, but because it was unilateral, this raised the question of a possible serious underlying etiology. We did have him seen by the EENT specialist on Leyte and he felt that, due to the duration of his symptoms, and the lack of other physical findings that there was no need for further work up at this time!
	This lady was found to be hypertensive and to have had a recent CVA with some facial residual weakness. She had not been on any previous medications. We started her on anti-hypertension medications and low dose aspirin daily. We have seen her in follow up and her high blood pressure in now under control and there has been some improvement in her facial weakness!
	This is my wife, Rhome doing some patient education with one of our hypertensive patients.
	Here we are using a glucometer to check the blood sugar of one of our diabetic patients. So far all of our type II diabetes patients are compliant with their medications, dietary restrictions, exercise recommendations and all have had markedly improved blood sugars and reduced symptoms related to their diabetes!
	This is a photo of me receiving “payment” for treating the two asthmatic sisters! As you can see the mother is very happy that her daughters are now asymptomatic! If you look close you can see my  “payment” is two live chickens in a plastic bag that I am holding and some fresh local bananas!

Well that brings us to the close of another update about our lives as Christian medical missionaries and our patients here on Pilar Camotes, Cebu, a small, remote, subsistence living island in the central Philippines!

We pray that you have enjoyed this update, that you will continue to follow our work in Christ’s name, for His glory and by His power! We also want to wish each and every one a Merry Christmas and a Happy Hanukah! We also ask that you keep us and our work in your prayers and that your blessings in the coming year be more abundant than you could ever imagine because you have certainly made our lives and the lives of all of our patients more abundant than they or we could have ever imagined!!!!

 

God Bless Us Every One!

 

Chip & Rhome Nuttall

pilarchip1@mac.com

A QUICK UPDATE ABOUT BLOG CHANGE

 

Just want to tell everyone about a new feature that has been added to our blog!

Thanks to a fellow PA and good friend, Karen F., there is now the option to enter your email and automatically be notified whenever there is a new blog post!

This should simplify everyone being updated in a timely manner whenever there is a new post and make things more efficient! I want to assure everyone that your email addresses will not be kept, sold, rented or used for spam! This process is made possible through Feedburner, a standard in the industry for automating notification of blog updates! Please consider giving it a try and don’t miss any updates!

We continue to be quite busy! On Saturday after Thanksgiving we set a new one day record for patients being seen! We saw 39 patients on that day, the last 2 at 9 PM!

As we all get ready for the upcoming Christmas season We would encourage everyone to remember the “REAL” meaning of Christmas and what a truly WONDERFUL and LOVING Blessing God gave us on that day so many years ago, and that the blessing continues anew everyday for each one of us! That God has a plan for us, that He loves us so much and wants each of us to love and accept Him as our personal Lord and Savior! Please keep Christ in CHRISTmas! HE is the reason for the season!

May God Bless Us, Everyone!

Blessings,

Chip & Rhome

pilarchip1@mac.com

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