Follow up on my cool patient story

So work has been going well - I'm starting to get the hang of things a bit more - I still am not very good about casting, but since many of the patients are getting out of casts at this point, it's more like what I would do in the States as far as restoring range of motion, regaining strength and the ability to walk.  We just got our new hand therapist in - Emily is from England and is very good at what she does as a hand therapist.  As we begin the Plastic surgery rotation in March, with another hand therapist coming in, I will get to learn a lot about contracture releases, scar management, pressure garments, splinting, etc.

So the exciting news of the week has been that the patient I wrote about earlier who has spina bifida, and then got menengitis, which actually was the healing factor for his cerebrospinal fluid leak.  So he's been doing so well with regaining his walking ability with a walker (we ziptied and duct taped a platform onto the R side because he didn't have much R hand function), but he started doing steps (our goal was 3 the first week but he did 16) and amazing us so we decided to try a trip to the Hope Center which is where the patients who live far away but still need outpatient care stay (a bed with a mattress underneath for a caregiver and a mosquito net over it all).  There are ~60 patient beds.  So Wednesday we made a trial trip (about a 10 minute drive when traffic is moderate), going down the 42 steps to get out of the ship, getting up in the back of a Land Rover with little assist.  We'll call him Abe for short.  Abe had such a smile on his face getting to the Hope Center and getting to see where his new "home" would be as he starts taking outpatient therapy.

Since last Wednesday was successful, Monday Abe was discharged to the Hope Center.  I heard a Land Rover leaving just before noon and figured it was him, seeing a hand waving out the back, I ran from the tent to send him off - they stopped at the gait and I got to wave goodbye a little closer. 

Monday night some friends and I went out walking and we just happened by the Hope Center and I got to check out Abe in his new surroundings.  He was happily sitting outside watching TV after dinner with the other patients. 

After walking down 42 steps!!  Myself, Emily (OT - now back in US), and Mom were so proud!!

Today he came for his first round of outpatient therapy.  We took lots of breaks, but worked on balance, walking with less support in the parallel bars, some fine motor skills with the weak R hand.  He'll be back tomorrow, so I tried not to tire him out too badly...  It's easy for me to go overboard (any former pts out there probably know I tend to push things if possible to the optimum).  ;)