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
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