After another long sleep on Thursday night I headed for the clinic about 9am. We only had one patient in yesterday which meant that we could spend a little more time on theory and techniques. I finished up modifying the below knee cast we took at the tent city on Thursday then started David off on shaping the cosmetic foam cover one of our older patients Sonya.
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| The Prosthetics clinic |
The covers are absolutely massive, apparently its because they clinic had ordered mainly medium and large sizes from the suppliers without realizing that the American suppliers tend to make them a lot bigger than the ones in the UK or Canada. I’d never used an electric carving knife to cut off the excess foam before but it worked a treat! After going over some anatomy together David and I applied the measurements we took the day before to a design shape that was a bit more true to her other leg. While David worked on the leg shaping, Nonu and I worked on making a pelite liner for the modified cast. Once we were done Nonu, David, Mike and I did our best to align the graceplate on the socket, which was a bit of a challenge without an alignment jig but I think we did pretty well :)
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| David working on the cosmetic cover |
Nonu, David and I went down to the workers kitchen for some “diri ak pwa” (beans and rice) and on the way we were talking about our families. I asked David where he was when the earthquake happened and he told me that he was in his home and that thankfully his wife had gone to pick up their kids at the school but that meant that he was left there all alone. He told me that he had never even heard of an earthquake before and that when he felt it he thought that the whole world was going to end. David told me that he was on the second floor of his house when he felt it and tried to walk down the stairs to get outside until he saw the cement walls crumbling into his path. He decided to go out onto the roof instead so that he could jump off -he told me at that point that he didn’t think he would live either way so jumping seemed like the better option.
Luckily, David only ended up with a sore back and gouge in his elbow but no breaks at all. The next day he went to into Port Au Prince to see the doctor but the hospital had been completely destroyed and all of the doctors were charging hundreds of dollars for treatment. He couldn’t afford to do that so he went to a natural doctor instead who used leaves and herbs to heal him. It was pretty shocking to hear this as many of the NGOs implied in adverts and articles that they had helped make all healthcare free for Haitians for a few months following the Earthquake.
David told me that his house was completely destroyed in the earthquake and that and now he and his family are living with his mother in Cabaret which is north of Titanyen. It takes him at least an hour by taptap (bus) to get to work everyday.
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| Lunch!! |
After lunch (which comes in a bucket) I packed up the extra diri ak pwa for dinner, which usually it goes in the bin, and then started to prepare the socket for molding. By 3:30 David had finished the leg and we had draped the socket and we were ready to go home. On the way out to the road David, Nonu and I were talking about our plans for the weekend and I mentioned my plans to escape to the market for some fresh fruit and veg … they laughed and told me to stay put for now and offered to bring some in with them on Monday I gave them money and am looking forward to a big huge salad :) they’ve also promised to take me out to the markets sometime next week! Yay!!
When I got back to the guesthouse the sky opened up. I was actually writing this post outside when the rain started but within seconds it turned from a light shower into a full-blown thunderstorm complete with horizontal rain and really intense fork lighting. It was amazing to watch from inside and so nice and cool after!
I feel like I’ve finally managed to adjust to the time and heat which is good :) they don’t do much here on the weekends so I spent most of today reading and practicing my French and Creole. I also managed to do some yoga before everyone got up this morning which was a bit trickier to do on stony ground but I decided I’d better not do it in the grass as there was an awful lot of rustling going on in there…
It seems maniacal to subscribe to the concern that everyone has with the water here, they pay to have it shipped in at least 8 times a day … and that’s just for showers toilets and cooking. For drinking water there are two options here; a water cooler filled with chemically treated water and then there’s bottled water (which comes with a price, they have no waste disposal here so every bit of garbage you make ends up being burned in a big heap just outside the clinic)
I’ve given up on both now and am only using my Steripen and sometimes the filter cap which gets rid of all the floaty bits ....
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| The turkeys outside our clinic |
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| The horse outside our clinic ...we named her Natasha |
A baby was abandoned at the clinic yesterday. Pierre, who is thought to be just under two was left under one of the benches in the triage area. His mum was in to get some support as the doctors say that he is showing signs of muscular dystrophy. Due to the restrictions on childcare here and the fact that our onsite orphanage is over capacity he had to be taken to the mayors home where he spent the night there until they could arrange for a temporary exemption. Pierre was also severely dehydrated and malnourished so our medical team stepped in and spent most of today trying to get him back to normal. They have some baby formula here but were hesitant to use it as its has got more fillers that nutrients (I don’t blame them!) so I offered up some of the wholefood vegan supplement I take when I’m not feeling 100% and they’ve sprinkled a bit in some mashed up banana for him. The mission still isn’t sure if we’ll be able to keep him here but in any case he’ll be staying until he’s a bit more stable.
After the storm last night our generator is in need of some love so we’re running on batteries now and it may take some time to get the up and running again. Our power comes one and off quite often even on a good day but this likely means that we wont have any for a few days so this may be my last post for a bit :) (sorry its so huge!)
much love
xx
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