Exciting Start to the New Year

Well it’s Sunday the 2nd and I’m sitting in the Hospital Chiriquí waiting room. Yesterday Yari broke her leg – compound fracture just above the ankle and dislocated the ankle. She was spending the afternoon with her mother and family. She went down a slide at the park and landed awkwardly on her right leg. It is a bad break requiring plates and screws. We could have taken her to the regional hospital, but she would have been put on a list and might have had to wait up to two weeks. Here the surgery was done last night and she may get to go home today. Joy was able to stay with her during the surgery. The cost of hospital and surgery is going to be about $2500, plus the various trips and meals here. Yesterday was the 1st day of the year and this accident busted our new budget wide open. If anyone wants to help, we could surely use it. Yari is a ministry for us, but we’re sure you have your own personal ministries as well.

We are missing church right now. Joy was supposed to start her teen girls’ class today. We also planned to feed lunch to about 20 people from the church, but our plans were changed. Joy spent the night with Yari while I went home to take care of the animals.

Joy just came out of Yari’s room. The orthopedic surgeon has decided to wait till Wednesday to cast, so we are going home about 12:30.

There were 3 doctors involved in the 4-hour surgery. The head doctor was so proud of his work that he told Joy he took pictures to show his colleagues.

Yari’s biological mother spent the night but took the bus home early this morning. She is back now and will ride up the hill with us to take Yari home.
We just went to Do It Center and bought two pillows for the trip home. By the way, the trip down yesterday afternoon took about 45 minutes – usually takes over an hour. I never went over 110 km/hr.

It’s 5:00 and we’re finally home. The bill was a little more - $2950 – because it was worse than expected. There were three breaks with one piece of bone about the size of a 50 cent piece floating just beneath the surface of the skin. We still have to go back Wednesday to have the cast put on, and then there will be 4 months of physical therapy. But we are all alive and relatively well, gracias a Dios (thanks be to God).