Dona's foot

Dona is a wonderful lady from the Cayos Cochinos, tiny islands just off the coast where many Garifuna people live. Dona grew up there and works as a cook at the one restuarant on the big island and she works with the nurse, Jan, as her translator, cook, and right hand woman for three months out of every year when Jan comes to serve the Garifuna people. Dona is diabetic and her father died a few months ago, so she has not taken very good care of herself. She noted a small foot wound, took antibiotics, but then did not mention that her foot was worsening until the ulcer had grown quite large. Fortunately, the nurse Jan had just arrived and gave her antibiotics and used good old fashioned maggots to eat away the dead skin and infection.

She was improving until one day her middle toe suddenly turned black. She was put on a boat and brought to our hospital for care. When I saw her, she had a large ulcer over the top of her foot and her middle toe was indeed black and dead. We admitted her for IV antibiotics and diabetes control. Over the next several weeks we struggled with her sugars being too high and too low and going through several different antibiotics as her foot worsened. Her middle toe was removed, the infection kept spreading down the bottom of her foot, and we were afraid that she would lose the rest of her foot. Unfortunately, around here it is not uncommon for diabetics to lose their feet, but I felt so awful about Dona. She is a leader in her communty and does so much to help her own people. It would be tragic for her to lose her foot! So, after being stressed out for several weeks, praying against the curse she believed had been put on her, searching through our warehouse for stronger antibiotics (praise the Lord for a Vancomycin donation!), and watching in fascination as Dr. Jeff invented a hyperbaric oxygen chamber for her foot...we finally saw improvement. Dona was here with us for six weeks and she left the hospital last week with her foot intact! What a blessing! She came in to see me yesterday, walking a little and with a much healthier looking foot. There is still risk of re-infection, but she is definitely on the road to recovery. She was so grateful and told us that if she had gone to any other hospital in Honduras, they would have amputated her foot immediately. She thanked us for all our hard work and patience and prayers. She said, " I know that God moves in this place and he heals what no one thinks can be healed!". On the gate in front of the Hospital it says, "Dios obra aqui" which means, "God is working here". So very true!!!