Fabrication continued for the prostheses and orthoses....crunch time! Friday and Saturday would be patient fitting days.
Amanda drilling holes to screw the sail onto the prosthetic socket.
Blu came by the clinic to hang our sign that came on the shipping container. A friend of John's made this sign for our clinic. What an awesome gift!
This is Enest who had a severe stroke. John made him a prosthetic eye, we provided him with a walker and fit him with an AFO (ankle foot brace) to help him to walk more safely.
Amanda had 2 patients on Thursday for physical therapy evaluations. This is Amy from Children's Nest, an orphanage in Choma that Carolin works with, who brought Catherine for physical therapy evaluation. Amanda taught Amy stretches and positional techniques to address Catherine's internal rotation.
Amanda also worked with Junior, who has tone due to hydrocephalus. Amanda taught his mom stretches for his arms and legs, and she and Carolin casted him for hand splints to use for positioning. Carolin will make this hand splints in Germany and send them for us to fit in September.
Joyce also came for fitting on Thursday of the modified AFO we made.
This is a good picture to show how callused her foot is from walking on the top portion of her foot that is curled under.
Initial fitting of the device. This fitting took a while, because I needed to make multiple adjustments to get it fitting and working just right.
After finalizing the fit of the brace.
Joyce had amniotic band constriction, which you can see on her left leg, is why her right foot is deformed and she also has a few fingers amputated as well. In the U.S., she would have had corrective surgery for the right foot as an infant. This brace supports under her heel to take weight off the top part of her foot. It also allows her to walk without a limp. I will follow up with Joyce in September to make sure the brace is still fitting well.
All the patients from Choma for eye fittings getting off the bus.
This is Kaboba, who lost his eye after being gored by a cow horn. He has a lot of scarring and internal damage to the eye socket from this injury.
What a wonderful smile after being fit!
This is Brite, who is 28 yrs old, and had an infection that caused him to have his eye removed years ago. John saw him last year for the first time, and he had a very small and constricted eye socket since his eye was removed so long ago. He fit him with a prosthetic eye and over the course of the year it gained back some of the lost socket size, which was the desired outcome. John was able to fit him with a bigger, more appropriate size eye this year.
Group photo after fitting!
This is Costanine, who lost his eye from a bad chemical burn.
This is Nadezida, who is 40 yrs old, and still has her eye, but it has become shrunken and blind. She said that it just started to do that on its own, so she does not know her exact diagnosis. John was able to fit her with what's called a scleral shell that fits over the damaged eye.
This is Charity, who had her eye removed as a child from a stick injury. John said her fitting seemed to make the biggest difference of all for the person. She was so "down" on herself overall and especially her looks, so having the prosthetic eye fit helped her tremendously. What a beautiful smile!
This is Mivet, who John has seen for the past few years.
Group photo with Mivet and his father.
This is Alex, who is 36 yrs old. He said he had a horrible itching issue in his eye that turned into an infection and required it to be removed.
John got a group picture with his patients from Choma after all the fittings were finished.
Dr. Samuel Verkerk from Macha, with Eye for Zambia, did 8 eye removals of the 18 eye patients John saw during this trip. Dr. Verkerk fit them at time of surgery with orbital implants that Prosthetic Promises had sent to him. Quote from John, "Surgical implants in the African Bush, just AWESOME!". This contact with Dr. Verkerk has been great for John to be able to provide complete care for these patients with necessary surgery first and then fitting of a prosthetic eye. It's really cool to see how God puts us in contact with people and provides these connections and conversations for His glory.
After all the patients left, Blu brought the kids from New Day up to the clinic for a field trip of sorts to see what we do.
Even Ron and Dee's dog, Danu, finds prosthetics interesting. 😊
We got a group photo of the team under the newly hung sign for the clinic!
John packed up his tools and supplies after seeing patients on Thursday. He would leave out early Friday morning to Livingstone to fly to South Africa to see his daughter, Erin, who is doing her graduate studies there. He visited her for the weekend and then met back up with us at the Johannesburg airport on Monday.
No comments:
Post a Comment