Medical Needs:
A Song in the Night helps children, parents, and sometimes even grandmothers and grandfathers with critical medical needs - from surgeries, to the items needed by doctors to do a surgery, including medicines needed to be administered during the operation, to providing diapers or other things demanded by hospitals to release a newborn. While there are government hospitals in Guatemala, they are often short of what they need to care for patients, and nothing is guaranteed, so we work together to get what is required for the best of all.
Long-term medications are needed for several Song in the Night children, like anti-seizure or asthsama prescriptions, which their families are not able to afford. There are other longer-term medical needs, some of which you can read more about below, that Song funds assist with as well, supporting healthier living and a life ahead filled with hope.
Some of the Many Cases Helped
A six-year old boy had appendicitis and needed surgery, that we were able to help. An 18-year-old young man, needed help to recover from his broken foot and ankle.
We also paid medical expenses for an eight-year-old boy who has a rare condition causing the loss of natural pigment in his skin, resulting in huge white blotches that form and grow in different parts of his body. We were able to help another young villager who was stranded in Guatemala City, (not a desirable place to be) with two back-to-back cases of Covid.
Among our moms, a single mother with breast cancer needed assistance, and another mother of three small children desperately needed hospitalization due to bleeding ulcers. We were also able to support a young mother of two, with medical treatment for diabetes, liver and kidney problems, and partial blindness (this is the same young woman we have helped with education).
Sarita lives with Donie since her mother died three years ago. She has ongoing multiple medical challenges. She suffered a stroke when she was 16, causing the right side of her body to be partially paralyzed. She also has brain damage and Lupus, requiring multiple medications and daily care.
There Are Always Needs, But the Lord Provides
In 2019 and 2020, A Song assisted a little three-year-old boy, who has continued to receive medical care and special orthopedic therapies to correct deformities in his hip and genital area. He continues to make a lot of progress over the years.
Marjorie, pictured at right, had an emergency appendectomy at seven years old. Thank God, she has fully recovered and is continuing to attend school.
A teenage boy, 14 years old, recovered from acute anemia and finished 7th grade. We are assisting his family monthly with basic foodstuffs like rice and beans, eggs and more, to head-off more reoccurrences of anemia.
Another 15-year-old boy, pictured at right, suffers from severe asthma attacks, some of which have landed him in the hospital numerous times. Along with getting a medical solution to deal with the asthma, we discovered that he is legally blind, and were able to get the glasses that he needed to be able to see. This helps him to be successful in school, as well as in life in general, thank God!
A 17-year-old girl, received medical care and six weeks of intensive physical therapy and rehabilitation for Bell's palsy that affected entire right side of her face and body in 2018.
Accidents Happen
In May of 2019, the father of one of our families was riding slowly on his motorcycle into town with his wife, and their two youngest children to pick up some medicine at the pharmacy. A dog ran in front of the bike, causing them all to spill out onto the highway.The two children received scrapes and bruises, but were fine.
Dad suffered internal injuries and mom had a crack in her skull, broke various facial bones around her eye, and had a cracked pelvis. There was some bleeding on the brain which caused her to remain in a partial coma for almost two weeks.
They sent mom home from the hospital while still in this condition for Donie to care for. The parents, along with the the four youngest children of their six, moved into Donie's living room for almost two months. Eventually, dad had to have surgery, and then received physical therapy. Praise God everyone has recovered!
Grown-ups Get Medical Help Too
Sandra, right, mother of two of the boys with serious medical needs, had surgery on her eye socket and received a new prosthetic eye that fits! Also received new glasses for her remaining "good" eye!
