Wow! Friday is crazy in the ortho clinic. We worked non-stop removing casts, cleaning wounds, suturing, replacing casts etc. I started the day by rounding (seeing all the patients) in the tent with the Ortho team and Sister Judy who translated. That was fortuitous as a group of physical therapists from the Comfort came over to help for a few hours and I knew who they needed to see and what needed to be done. We had given out a wheel chair to a pregnant woman who lost a leg and had weakness in the hand so she could not use crutches. The others were needed to learn to use their walkers after pelvic and leg fractures. One diabetic lady was going to follow up with her endocrinologist but he was killed and her house was gone. Many of the chronically ill lost not just their homes and families but also their medications and their doctors. Sending them home is a bit tricky when there is no home. Fortunataely many NGO's have descended and are busy with that task.
We had a group of nuns in the clinic as one of the sisters needed her leg cast replaced today. I was helping with that when the nun who was translating asked me which order I belonged to. She was surprised that I was not a nun. No one who knows me would have thought that.
Our last cast replacement was on a lady somewhere between 50 and 80. Hard to tell here as it is such a hard life they age early and often have no idea when they were born. Derrick put a cast on her and the last wrap had dinosaurs on it. Very colorful! She smiled broadly but with few teeth.
In the meantime the 2 orthopedists did surgery all day long. They are still going...
wow mom. truly wish I could be with you. Maybe Tommy and I can take leave injunction with a military flight and get over there cheaply... a thought. a bit of a jealous thought (;
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