Saturday, April 28- Sunday, April 29: Luyando comes for follow-up and a walk to the river

Saturday was filled with more fabrication with laminations, more sewing which was almost finished, Carolin was working on a unique AFO (ankle-foot orthosis) fabrication for Harrington (more about his story in my earlier post), Amanda was working on straps and buckles for the sails and John started processing all of the eyes he finished painting on Friday.

Carolin smoothing a plaster model.

John reading over his sermon for Sunday. Every trip to New Day, John is asked to preach one of the Sundays we are there. I always love hearing his sermons!

Amanda's patient from Friday with hip and back pain came back on Saturday for another P.T. session. We also added a 1/2" heel lift in her left shoe to level her hips due a leg length discrepancy.

The lady was pleased with the relief she felt after working with Amanda. Her plan was to come back the later in the week to work with Amanda again.

Models waiting for lamination.

  

John working in his room. He had one of the eyes break during processing, so he had to start the process of re-making that one.

The first lamination for Harrington's AFO.

Amanda burning holes in the straps of the sails. The straps are secured with buckles like a belt. Burning holes in the thick material is one of the most tedious processes....can't thank Amanda enough for working for multiple days on getting the sails ready.

We had a hole starting in the concrete on the porch, and I caught John filling our miniature pothole with material that he uses for fabrication.

On Sunday before church, Luyando and her mother arrived for follow up on her prosthesis. We have been seeing Luyando since 2014 for a prosthesis after her leg was amputated due to a snake bite. Since we were about to go to church, she and her mother went with us and then had lunch with us at the guesthouse. We then went up to the clinic, with Blu to translate for us, to assess her prosthesis. I repaired a few things including replacing the knee with a new knee, gave her new supplies and a new pair of shoes. It was so good to see both Luyando and her mom. They have moved since we saw her last time, so they're now close to the capital city, Lusaka, which is close to 200 miles. We gave her mom money for transport and food on the way back home. 

We decided to take Sunday afternoon to rest and refresh for the week ahead, which was much needed. Chris took a nap and John, Carolin, Amanda and I went with Lance for a walk to the river. 

There were people washing laundry upstream a little ways.

Carolin was showing the kids pictures on her camera.

Lance and John

Still wish I could learn how to balance stuff on my head like that.

John and Amanda ahead on the path.

I love the rich colors of nature...the red dirt, greens and yellows of vegetation and the big, bright blue sky.

We passed some villages on our walk.

  

A maize field we passed.

After dinner Sunday evening, Chris and I got a real treat when Carolin and Amanda got out a guitar kept at the guesthouse and sang worship songs.

Sunday was filled with joy from hearing John's sermon to seeing Luyando and her mother again to a peaceful walk to the river and to wrap it up with beautiful songs of praise to our Creator. 💗

Next post: Monday, April 30- Tuesday, May 1: Eye fittings begin and more new patients

Monday, April 30- Tuesday, May 1: Eye fittings begin and more new patients

(Disclaimer: we somehow didn't get many pictures on Monday) John had 2 eye fittings on Monday, we continued fabrication most of the day, and we had 2 new patients arrive at the clinic.

Amanda had a man come with weakness and pain but she was not able to fully know what was going on with him without a formal diagnosis. She was able to work with him on exercises for strengthening and pain relief though. 

We had an orthotic patient, Mary, who came as well. I was expecting to see Mary and had brought a plastic AFO (ankle foot orthosis) specifically for her. She is a school teacher who is standing much of the day. Her right foot is inverted (turned inward), and she has foot drop (unable to pick up her toes when walking). The brace I brought for her was modified to fit her and worked very well to correct her foot and make walking safer.

Amanda continuing the tedious task of burning holes in straps.

Protashow cutting out a prosthetic socket after final lamination. 

Carolin working on fabrication with plaster.

John polishing a finished prosthetic eye.

Chris getting a model ready for the second lamination.

  

The "finished" area for prostheses. 

On Tuesday, John had one eye fitting and prosthetic fabrication continued with an assembly line rhythm of sorts. I got models ready for first and second laminations and assembled the locks inside the sockets, and Chris did laminating. Protashow cut out sockets, broke out the plaster and then smoothed up the socket edges. Amanda and Carolin put together the final prostheses and gathered supplies and shoes for each patient. It was really awesome to have the assembled prosthesis with shoes and supplies in a tote bag for each patient for fitting days. It made the flow of seeing patients on fitting days much smoother. 

Chris starting a lamination.

Working on Akim's orthosis. Akim is a young boy with a foot deformity and significantly shorter leg on the same side. This device supports his leg and foot and has a prosthetic foot underneath for the correct height.

John in his work area.

Amanda's patient with the hip and back pain came back. She had been wearing the heel lift in one shoe to level her pelvis and doing the exercises Amanda taught her. They did another therapy session on Tuesday.

Her hip range of motion had improved and she was pleased with the heel lift that makes her hips level. Love those smiles!

Protashow breaking plaster out of a finished prosthetic socket. 

Papa Tembo stopped by the clinic to say hello. He's one of the house parents at New Day.

This is Florence, who also works at New Day. She came for her eye fitting with John on Tuesday. She still has her eye, so John was able to make a thinner shell to cover her eye with coloring to match her right side.

After fitting as John evaluates the fit and appearance.

Carolin working on prosthetic assembly. 

John helped me with this orthotic device. The pink stuff is acrylic that John has, which we used to form a base for this AFO for Joyce, who has a severely deformed foot. She is currently walking on the top of her foot (imagine taking your toes and bending them down to fold your foot in half). This device is designed to put some pressure under her heel to lift the weight off the top of her foot while providing protection to her foot. (Finished pictures to come in a later post)

Carolin meticulously checking a prosthesis.

The "finished" area for prostheses is growing!

On the walk back down to the guesthouse after we finished working on Tuesday, Carolin and I climbed the water tower for some sunset pictures.

I love the sunset view from the water tower!

Next post: Wednesday, May 2: More eye fittings + the shipping container arrives!

Wednesday, May 2: More eye fittings + the shipping container arrives!

Wednesday was a busy day at the clinic! And the start of all the patient fittings. Since John would be leaving earlier than us, he had his patient fittings on Wednesday and Thursday and then the prosthetic and orthotic fittings were on Friday and Saturday.

Protashow left first thing Wednesday morning to go to the Macha radio station to pick up patients for eye fittings with John. This turned out to be somewhat inefficient because all the patients except one came to the clinic on their own, so Protashow arrived back at the clinic with the one patient and everyone else was already there. John had 7 eye fittings on Wednesday. 

This is Rosemary, who is 16 yrs old. Her eye was injured as an infant from a tree branch as her mother gathered fire wood and was carrying her on her back. This is by far the most common story John has encountered for the reason for eye loss in Zambia.

Love their smiles!

Amanda had a new patient come on Wednesday. She has weakness in her leg since a fall and fracture. They worked on strengthening exercises.

The lady on the right is one of John's patients, Agness. The other two ladies are family members, and the woman on the left has a below knee amputation. This was a difficult conversation to have. She came with Agness, who was getting fit with her prosthetic eye, since they had seen that we do prosthetic legs as well when Agness came for evaluation. The woman's amputation was late last year. We didn't have enough time to make her a prosthesis since she came only a few days before we would leave. I fit her with a shrinker (a compressive sock for her leg) for her to wear during the day to help shape her leg in preparation for prosthetic fitting. We got her contact information, and I will see her in September to make her a prosthesis then. 

This is Agness. When John asked her age, she told him she didn't know.

Cataract was the reason for her eye loss.

This is Steven, who is also 16 yrs old. He had some type of foreign object in his eye that caused an infection and required removal of his eye.

After fitting of his prosthetic eye.

The little girl is Coliness, and she had a penetrating injury to her eye caused by a piece of straw. John said he was most disappointed in the outcome of her prosthetic eye, because he did all of her fitting by guess work because of her anxiety and fear. Poor John, she was so terrified of him when she came for evaluation.

He did get a smile when she came back for fitting, but it was still a bit of an ordeal. John hopes to get a much better fit next year. And hopefully she won't be so scared then.

Also on Wednesday, the supplies from the shipping container arrived! This was the container that was loaded in December. It had arrived in Choma, and a truck was hired to bring the supplies from Choma to New Day. Some of the older kids at New Day and staff came up to the clinic to help unload the supplies. Chris, John and Amanda worked on sorting items as they unloaded to determine where it should go in the clinic. 

Cambree carrying in a rolling walker.

Papa Tembo with crutches.

More crutches! We also got plaster that will be used for September's trip, more shoes and the new vertical alignment jig we had packed!

I couldn't find a picture of the alignment jig in all my pictures from this trip, so this is from a Google search. But this my friends, is an important piece of equipment we use in fabricating prostheses. And the old one we had was just that...old, and missing a few parts and rigged to work in a few places. (Just imagine a little ray of sunshine shining down on this picture with the hallelujah chorus)

In between John's patients, the shipping container supplies arriving and Amanda's new patient, fabrication continued of prostheses and orthoses. Here's Carolin laminating the brace for Harrington.

Wednesday's eventful day wasn't quite finished with our work at the clinic. When we got to the guesthouse for dinner, Amanda and Carolin discovered a spitting cobra in their bathroom. John and Fostina took control of the situation and killed it! Whew!

Next post: Thursday, May 3: Eye fittings, more P.T. patients and fitting Joyce's brace