Hope House is a Nigerien run clinic that typically sees club foot, leg deformities from Rickets, contractures from burns or spasticity, brachial plexus injuries, and cerebral palsy. The main form of treatment is serial casting. Jeanne will be happy to know that Kristina is now Nigerien trained in the Ponsetti method since she was unable to learn during the serial casting lab mishap with the cast saw.
CURE is an international organization that has hospital locations in 11 different countries. This campus was opened in October and run by an anastethesiaologist from Pennsylvania, a surgeon from France, and a host of expatriate and Nigerien nurses, doctors, and staff. Their main focus is children with cleft palate, club foot, limb deformity, post stroke rehabilitation, and trauma following burns or fractures. They also use some serial casting, but primarily work with severe cases where surgical fixation is necessary.
Here are some pictures of selected patients:
This little boy has rickets. They surgically corrected his left leg at CURE and he is receiving inpatient rehbilitative care at Hope House. He will have the other leg surgically fixed once the left leg has healed.
This little girl has a brachial plexus injury and presented for therapy at Hope House. She cried for the first hour, didn't speak French or English, and was terrified of Dr. Carey, Michelle, and Kristina. We eventually found a way to communicate (showing her how to play with toys), gave her animal crackers, got her to use her injured arm, and got some really great stuff for a home program that we showed her mom. She also warmed up to Kristina and Michelle. Not Dr. Carey though. When he was around, she hid behind her mom.
Here is Kristina being trained in the Nigerien ways of serial casting at CURE. This was for a young man who had what we think was cerebral malaria, resulting in a paretic left arm and associated wrist and elbow flexion contractures from disuse. He, unlike the last patient we had with a wrist flexion contracture, did not try to bite anyone.
This little boy is actually 14 years old. Before coming to CURE, he walked on his hands and knees resulting in the unusually large patellae (knee caps) seen above. He also had knee flexion contractures, which were the reason for the serial casting. He hated Michelle. And the PT. Mainly because Michelle wouldn't let him scratch AND painfully extended his knee while the cast dried. Kristina consoled him. And he loved her. However, Kristina later betrayed him by recreating the pain Michelle had previously inflicted on the other leg. He yelled, in Hausa, "For the love of God, leave me alone!" throughout the entire session. Thank goodness for translators.
This little girl actually liked all of us. I think it was because we had nothing to do with her treatment and gave her a necklace, a ring, and a princess sticker. She was from an orphanage and came into CURE with a fractured elbow that healed with a 70 degree flexion contracture (her elbow was bent at a 70 degree angle and she could not straighten it from there). She currently is at 38 degrees with weight-assisted and manual stretching. I think she even liked Dr. Carey.
In addition to these two clinics, we particpate in consultations at the guesthouse where we are staying. Those types of patients range from local missionaries with shoulder pain to 12 y/o kids with knee pain to the brother of one of our students who had back pain. Sometimes the consultations occur when Susan's clinic is open for business, other's occur whenever we have time. Kristina was even able to use her wound care skills to bandage a toe nail (or lack thereof).
We are now off to teach English to one of the guys that works for our hosts while he teaches us Hausa. Should be interesting.
Sai wani lokaci ("until another time" in Hausa),
Michelle and Kristina
I told you serial casting would be a handy skill!
ReplyDeleteJeanne