Sorry if anyone has been wondering what I’ve been up to
since my first day, we’ve had problems with the internet and getting our time
onto our dongle, so we’ve not had internet since Tuesday! (Also to save
internet I’m not on facebook too much other than to check messages as it uses
up a fair bit of our package – so feel free to email or f.b message as I have a
system of copy and pasting onto word to reply so I don’t use up lots of time!)
I’d love to fill you
in with absolutely everything but it’s just impossible to fit it all into a
blog! No one would like to read an essay everyday...and I don’t suppose I’d
find the time to do that either!!
So, last week was really good, I spent most of the time observing
everything the physios were doing. There is so much to take in! As the week
went on I was able to assist with treatment, so things like getting patients
mobilised, passive stretching for the burns patients and measuring crutches for
the many fracture patients. There’s not so much of the health and safety where
the physios would decide if it was safe for the patients to walk with
assistance of a nurse etc, it’s more like ‘here’s some crutches, off you go’!
The patients do like to get outside as Ugandans do spend a lot of their time
outside, so usually in the afternoons the majority of patients are outside in
the space between the wards. I was also able to help put on plaster of paris on
a wee baby who is 3 months old which was tricky!! We decided to put plaster on
both legs to try and get their feet in the right position, as they were both
turned in so the soles were nearly facing each other. It seems to be pretty
common here for babies be born with this condition, they call it ‘Crab feet’.
The plaster will hopefully be able to correct this as he’s still pretty young.
We had a 13/14 year old boy in the day before but he was never treated while he
was young, so his feet were still turned side on and he’d obviously found his
own way to get around using a stick and carrying his things with him in a carry
bag around his head. His feet were all swollen, but all we could do for him was
order a proper pair of crutches.
We really don’t realise how fortunate we are at home with
the treatment we get. With so many fractures here, they only have a Orthotic
Surgeon who comes once a month (and it can vary slightly to be even longer). So
one of the patients we went to see last week was a young boy who had been run
over when he was on his bicycle, breaking both his Tibia and Fibia on both legs
as well as his collar bone, and he has been stuck in bed unable to do anything
for weeks until the surgeon came! All we could do was a couple of bed exercises
to keep other muscles moving and working. The surgeon was here on Friday though,
and when I walked by the male ward just before tea tonight I saw him with both
his legs in plaster sticking out in front of him as he was wheeling himself
about outside in a wheelchair with a massive grin on his face! So he must be
chuffed to be able to move where he wants and have a change of scenery for the
first time in weeks!!
I’ve been trying to learn useful words that I’ll be able to
use when treating patients, like ‘bend’ & ‘straighten’ and useful things
like numbers. It’s really good because there is a lot of contact with kids, so
numbers and colours can be picked up pretty quickly and the physios are keen to
try and teach me. However, one problem is that it’s not just people who speak
Luganda who come here for treatment! Apparently most patients speak a bit, but
there are many different dilects/languages and sometimes the staff who are
local can struggle to communicate! So, we’ll see how my few words work!! I can't really imagine being able to treat patients myself here yet, especially with the whole language barrier, but we'll take it one day at a time and see how it all goes!
Since I only overlap a couple of weekends here with my
friend Sarah, we’ve decided to make the most of it! So I’m just back from a
weekend Safari at Murchison Falls!
No idea where to start describing that other than Amazing!! (My
photos I’ve taken just don’t do it justice at all! ) A definite highlight was
the boat ride up the Nile seeing Hippos really close; the giraffe’s were a
personal favourite and one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen was
watching two lionesses stalking a massive herd of the Ugandan Kobs (which is
the Ugandan national animal – it was some kind of antelope looking thing) ...So
it’s been an amazing weekend, four of us went from the guesthouse at Kiwoko and
in our minibus we were joined by two guys who were both travelling, but we’re
all feeling pretty knackerd now! It
takes a fair bit of travelling to get anywhere from Kiwoko as it’s pretty rural,
so that is pretty tiring in itself on the bumpy roads. And I also realised
going to a touristy part of Uganda just how different it is to how Ugandans
really live, so it’s been good to see the contrast. But there isn’t much time
to write anymore just now, aiming for a fairly early night in order ready to
start week two at the hospital! J
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