Jennifer Week 2

Amy boarded her plane this morning and made it safely back to the US. Passing her in transit was Mary, and I was very excited to see her when she arrived at the clinic at 10am. Mary hit the ground running, as we were well into a busy morning of patients already, when she arrived. I oriented her as we treated and tried to take care of everyone.... things from joint contractures, healed and healing fractures, arthritis,
We spent the second half of the day working with inpatients ranging from a CVA, a diabetic, a man with sacral ulcers, and of course Judeline and Anise. Today Anise left the hospital with baby Isaac. I wish those of you who started her off could have been there to see her off, but we were emphatic with her that she continue to return to see us to keep up with her wearing and ambulation! She has been ill the past three days, so she has not been wearing her shrinker as she should, which is a concern. I think that is the hardest part for me, how an inpatient returns "home", and has no transportation, yet desperately needs our care and attention. I'm glad we confirmed her phone number so we will be in contact. On Saturday, Amy made a video of Clifford walking, my favorite video ever!! It is on Facebook, if you send a friend request to me or Amy you can see it too. In the foreground is Clifford on his little crutches, but you cannot see from the video that there were 6 videos right before it of him just standing there like a tiny statue, refusing to walk in his silent defiance. Then he carefully, adorably walks through the clinic, and Judeline is in the background listening to my ipod and refusing her therapy. We had kept her there a good part of the afternoon stretching her knee and her heelcord and watching her put tiny dots of antiseptic gel on her sensitive hand. She likes my music a little too much and keeps wanting me to listen with one earphone so we can dance. I cannot resist!!
Mary brought up something interesting today. She noticed that in her crutch training, she had forgotten once or twice to address the patients stairs. She was reminded of this when her last patient mentioned that she had a whole bunch of stairs to climb. At that moment, I too realized I had not addressed stairs with my crutch walkers!! We laughed together and I realized I had still not figured out how to transition from my familiar environment to this one....should I ask if they have a sturdy handrail?? Do I tell them to do their exercises on their bed? No, I say, "Do this where you sleep." Amy figured out last week not to say, "Stand at your kitchen counter," and instead say, "find something to hold onto." We hope our translators figure out what the heck we are saying....you would think by now, watching us teach the same things over and over and over, they would be used to explaining this. Still I am not sure. As we send them back into their environment, whatever that may be, we do wonder...is it a tent? A second story flat? A little curtained room? Or the same house they were in before? We continue to search for words to say, ways to understand what they are going through, and I knew I had been here a long time, because today the ride home was a little boring. That says a lot if you have ridden these streets!!