Our First Home Visit

(Written by Kaeli)

Today we visited a remote village where all the village healthcare workers had told the families to bring in their physically disabled children to see us if they wanted. They put us up in a school room, it is hilarious to see the fascination all the children have for us, they crowd around the windows and push each other to watch us until their teachers reprimand them!

 Families gathering for immunizations and other medical care.

 Our makeshift treatment tables. This was actually pretty effective!

 Teaching a mother how to work with her child on head control with graduated challenge. 

 Kendra had treated this little boy when she came two years ago! She said he had made huge improvements! We worked on core control, crawling, and walking with him! That smile.....

One old man was catching my attention all day. When all the other children had gotten their turn with us he stood up and told us that he wanted to bring his 20 year old son but since he still cannot walk he would have had to carry him on his back, and when he tries to do that his son bites him. We agreed to drive him to his home so see what we could do. Their home consists of a slightly cleared rocky spot and three small structures. One is a small dirt floor thatched-roof room where the child was locked in (probably for his own safety). He has cerebral palsy and was spastic, but the father assisted him walking outside. He was too shy to interact with us, so we had to teach the father how to do transfers and assist walking to the toilet and such and use me as a demo. The old man laughed so hard when he realized I wanted him to practice lifting me (with better body mechanics of course). We even made a makeshift gait belt out of a Zambia cloth (a large piece of thin colorful fabric). The young man (Kenny) was dancing to music inside his head and when we played him music his whole body got into it- it took him to another world. Talk about how powerful music can be!

A few of the adults in the community have formed a sort of coalition to band together families with disabled family members. They want to organize getting mats for children to lay on, and wheelchairs. I also think gait belts would be helpful so that the parents could better transfer them. 

We saw 4 more patients when we returned to the hospital-more straightforward orthopedic issues like casting. Today was another exhausting day, with a village clinic, a home visit, and some hospital work. It is so good to feel like our time here is worthwhile- I think we are really bringing awareness to the communities, teaching Brighton some techniques and skills, as well as learning so much ourselves. Anne and I learn so much from watching Kendra take on these incredibly challenging patients and break the case down into simple, manageable things to treat and teach the patients. And then in addition we all learn so much about the challenges of quality healthcare in a country with such little governmental support and such extreme poverty.