Reflections

As I sit on a rooftop in Thamel, I am flooded with gratitude to our team and host hospital.

Dr. Carl. my co leader, while it may be true we only see eachother in Nepal. It is always a great time with an amazing team dynamic. I think we both compliment eachothers strengths and weaknesses in leadership. Good Luck on the Mountain trip!

Dr.Ali. Thank you for joining us on this amazing journey. It was great to perform new techniques and bring more Ex fix exposure to NOH. Thank you for reaching out to Jen Sherry and bringing a larger audience into our MTA.

Bojan. What can I say. You are one amazing woman. We are lucky to have you as an anchor on our team. Congratulations on completing your 93rd mission with our team in Nepal!!!

Calei. I cant believe its been 5 years since we've seen eachother let alone worked in Nepal together!! Thank you for all the generous supply donations as well as being a shining star, fun happy positive person who is a joy to work and hang out with!

Ashlee. Happy 16th. Thank you for spending your birthday time on our trip. The photos are fantastic. Your interaction with the kids and patients was great. Many of us commented on how mature you are!! I know you will be a great photo journalist because, you already are.

Latika. Strangers no more. I know you were nervous jumping in with a bunch of strangers. Thank you for taking time out of your residency. I hope you learned a lot not only about surgery but about what mission trips are all about!

Jen. What makes a trip more fun? 2 Jens for the price of 1. We are so grateful for your time in joining us on our mission. For many years we have worked under the radar but I think its a perfect time to shed light on the amazing work done by people in the name of creating opportunity for people with physical challenges. You were a blast to hang with and made talking to a camera so easy.

Amy. Thank you for jumping in head first. You were great! You kept our team organized and brought a wonderful spirit to the team. I am glad Dr Tom recommended  you to come on the trip.

NOH. Dr Saju, Anil, Sujan,Ragiv and the whole team. What amazing hosts. Thank you for allowing us to help over 70 patients 23 of which surgically. We are looking forward to continuing our friendship and working together to better the lives of nepali children and adults.
Namaste
Jennifer

Two days for the price of one

Wow, on Monday I was worried about all of the small details of the trip, screening, folders, organizing, now as I type this the trip is formally over......I can not tell you how overjoyed I am.

5 years ago, Dr Steve Miller emailed me and asked if I wanted to go to Nepal on a mission trip, we had just met 2 weeks before and had chatted about podopediatrics and mission work. I said yes. I said yes and the world opened up for me. If you had told me then just 5 years later I would be helping to lead teams of wonderfully amazing people from all walks of life and locations, i might have believed you. Dr Miller inviting me on that trip was the best thing in my career.

Yesterday was Thursday, the most amazing day. A patient that touched all our hearts 5 years ago came back to discuss her case and upbring. I was able to go to the orphanage where she was raised. DHC-New Life Center, the kids there were very happy.  It was amazing and such a happy happy day. We did great cases and then made it to Fire and Ice Pizzaria.

Pizza in Kathmandu????? Some may think were crazy but the place is great. Pizza is wonderful and the servers are awesome. Its nice to enjoy a bit of hone when you're far away.

Friday 20 March

Breakfast at the Norling is always nice, sitting at the table enjoying food with a table of people many of whom were strangers on Monday is a great way to reflect on the human spirit. Our team had 4 return members and 5 new ones.

As a co team leader, you hope that the team you build likes eachother, works well together and the host institutions like working with them.

We were blessed on all three. Not only was this a great group, we were able to run a pretty tight ship and yesterday Dr Saju told myself and Carl that NOH enjoyed working with us very much! It made me so joyful. We did some fun cases yesterday, Dr Carl worked to correct 2 different toe deformities, Dr. Ali and myself treated equinus as well as pediatric hammering of the toes.

In total we screened over 70 patients, operated on 23 11 of which were children and performed over 50 procedure which includes external fixation, clubfoot release, cavus foot reconstruction, post polio surgery. In addition to the surgery, we were able to utilize the stash of Cascade AFOs Dr Steve had brought in 2013 as well as purchase custom made braces and inserts for 10 patients.

The trip closed today with an amazing team dinner filled with laughter, photographs, whiskey and wine. Who could ask for a better trip.

We are planning next years trip already....stay tunned!!!!!

Namaste, Dr Jennifer

Marathon Wednesday.

It is 10pm Kathmandu time. We just got back from dinner.

Breakfast was at 6:30, we were at NOH by 8 am ready to start our day. Two cancelations later, cases were flipped and our day was started.

As Dr Ali brought external fixation equipment we were able to perform 2 today. One a very very complex case that lasted over 8 hours. The other a complex deformity in a child who broke her leg after falling 2 stories, she was set in a deformed position, we used the frame to fix this.

We were over 12 hours total in the OR. Long but satisfying day.

During the day I met with the Chief of the hospital, we discussed sponsorsships of missions, our next mission, monetary donations to aid in our patients care. This was very enlightening. 

We left NOH around 8 pm. One of our team NOH doctors Ragiv saw us starting to walk home, he called the hospital administration and got us a ride! Although it was a lovely night, all of our feet appreciated this gift of motorized travel!!!

While a few went back to hotel, the remainder went back to Gokarna for a delicious dinner buffet and a bit of birthday cake for Latika.

Well after a long 18 hours day, we all need a little bit of rest!

Namaste, until tomorrow
Dr Jennifer

How does the HTC celebrate St. Patrick's Day???

17 March 2015

A Saint Patrick's Day our whole team will remember, not for the green scrubs some wore or the beers we finished our day with but for the 6 patients we helped surgically and the 10 more we saw and recommended care for. 

A little thought on Healing the children, you may see photos of our adult patients as well as our child patients. Why?? Well some of our adult patients were children when they were diagnosed with their condition and many never received treatment as children, as such the deformity worsened and their life was truly changed, for the worse. How can we turn them down. Although our first priority is the children, we will see and treat the adult foot and ankle patients as well. 

Early recognition and treatments are keys to correcting certain deformities like clubfoot, other deformities need extensive work ups to understand the cause as some are neurological. For example, I saw a follow up today.  He's 14 years old,  he had suspected neuromuscular disease and two camps ago we sent him for testing, after many tests he was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, this diagnosis does modify our plan a bit and we discussed many options with the patient and his parents. 

One case that really hurt my heart was a patient our team had done surgery on 5 years ago.

 My first HTC Mission I helped treat a woman's neglected bilateral clubfoot. Her case was bilateral as a team we decided it would be better to treat one foot at a time, although she asked for us to do both. As a team we felt it would be too much  for recovery if we did both, she would need to be carried everywhere. She said she understood. She has come back for follow up for the past 3 camps. Each time we ask her if she wants the other foot operated on. This year she finally tells us that her family doesn't want to help her recovery. Neither her son or daughter want to help her. I offered  to pay for her recovery,to stay at NOH, but she said her family wouldn't let her. It broke my heart but at least she has one corrected foot. 

Today we helped to correct tight calf muscles, contracted toes, arthritic ankles, bunions,traumatic arthritis and peroneal spastic flatfoot. It was a good day of surgeries and follow ups not only from yesterday but of our previous  camps. It was great to see.how happy our returning patients are. One of our patients Chandra is getting her masters degree in Nepali language and grammar. She is doing well and wanted to sit and practice her english with me. It was so nice because as we were taking pictures, she showed me her photos from last year, our team, her and her family. So amazing!

Our team was able to be at Swaymabhunath or monkey temple an ancient buddhist temple complex upon one of the highest points in Kathmandu Valley. It was beautiful. We finished the day with beers and a buffet dinner at Gokarna Forest. What a great start to the surgical part of our mission. We have 7-8 cases tomorrow. We are so happy that we are able to work with the local anesthesiologists although it changes our OT plans( We run 2 OTs until 12 noon then 1 until the cases are done) we are happy they are working with us!!!

Until tomorrow here are some photos from today! Namaste

Dr. Jennifer 

16 March, Let's Get Started!!!!

Namaste from Nepal

Today was our kick off day filled with patients, paperwork and planning.

We started with a family style breakfast at the Norling Hotel, then a total of 2 trips in NOH's ambulance the 8 team members and 16 bags and boxes got to our team room. It was great to be back to a place where everyone remembers you and welcomes you back with open arms.

We unpacked and got our registration and screening process organized. Unpacking led to 3 industrial shelves  filled with medical supplies including suture, casting supplies, drill bits, or drapes, blades, medicine etc.

Over 50  new patients  showed up today along with their families. We expect some of our follow up cases from the past 7 trips tomorrow. We had a patient from last year come today. She was in no pain and was super happy with the results. It made us all so happy!

We tried to keep everything running smoothly but after lunch, many patients came back with their X-rays, this slowed the intake of new patients, we will work on improving the flow of  X-ray evaluation for screening day for next year. Each trip there is something we can improve upon.

We were joined mid day by one of the most amazing people I know. Our OR nurse Bojan. Bojan was in Guatemala just a few days ago on another Healing the Children Mission trip with a team of 20. Dr steve Miller told me today they did 32 surgeries while there. Ms Bojan left from Guatemala to connect at LAX then come join us in Kathmandu. I am proud to say that she followed up her 93rd medical mission with our NOH trip, making Nepal MTA 2015 her 93rd Mission trip since 1988!!!!!! She lives life to the fullest and really is an inspiration.

Overall, screening day was a success more than 1/3 of patients were surgical candidates, the balance of patients we treated with orthotics/braces, Ponseti casting and injections. The patients that deferred surgery this year do to timing or expectations will be put on our follow up list and seen next visit.


We are very excited to work alongside our Nepali colleagues this week performing mobility restoring, pain relieving and even some life saving surgery.

Dr. Jennifer



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