Today we started by seeing a patient with a hip that has been dislocated since birth. She is 2 years and 9 months old. We decided to consider the best option for her. She will need surgery and we will likely refer her to Kikuyu Orthopedic Rehabilitation Centre because they have the special expertise that neither Dr. Gary Farley nor I have. We then started a journey through some incredibly bad roads to visit children that we operated on in September. There were a couple of times that Oliver, the director of the Disabled Community Center, barely had enough room to turn around. Looking at the gauge in the car that shows tilt was breath taking.
There are many schools in very remote places. We visited one with 935 students, that has a special room for disabled children. There were 25. Some of the students had cerebral palsy, but were able to attend the main stream classes. Others had Down’s Syndrome.
A few weren’t very communicative. They are the only children at the school who live there full time. They sometimes don’t have enough money to feed the children and they share beds with terrible mattresses. This school is a government school but it feels like the government doesn’t support it like it should. We are going to try to raise about $1000 to buy new beds and mattresses. Would you please consider donating? You may use the donate link.
Like the roads some are smooth and the children recover easily like this little girl who was terribly bow legged. For others, like the road as shown in the pictures, the path to recovery is incredibly rough and difficult to navigate, like this little boy who has had one surgery to release the burn contracture at the elbow, another to release his wrist and will need a third to release his fingers.
Tomorrow we will evaluate 20 more children tomorrow. It will be busy but very interesting and rewarding.
Blessings,
Doug
Recent Comments