Lydia, a stroke victim, with her sisters
Pretty clear why the CP patients are my favorite!!!!
John, my favorite patient of all time!
How strange that we have passed the halfway point!! Yesterday marked exactly five weeks from when we arrived and four weeks from when we leave! I am still loving Ghana and learning so much but I am definitely counting down the days until home (28 days, 9 hours; in case you were curious ☺)!! Friday marked my last day in Physical Therapy, yesterday was spent administratively getting ready to switch to the wards, and tomorrow I will start in the NICU! I am really going to miss the PT – not only did I learn a ton and gain a lot of independence in treating “my own” patients but I also felt really at home in the unit with the other PTs and the patients!
The cerebral palsy children continued to be my favorite patients because we would play for an hour! The children here are absolutely adorable and get really excited around “obrunis” (foreigners) so they would rush into the unit to give me a hug and start their treatment. It was hard to say goodbye to them! I was also surprised by how much I enjoyed learning about strokes and working with stroke victims. I found their improvements the most rewarding and I was so moved by how hard they worked. It was unbelievable to think back to Week One when I saw them for the first time and to realize how far they had come. When I first saw Lydia, she was completely unresponsive, could not sit unsupported, neglected the left side of her body and had absolutely no movement on the affected side. By our last visit she was awake and alert, aware of her left side, communicating fully with me, transferring from sitting to standing and from bed to wheelchair and was even walking a bit within the parallel bars – incredible!
My favorite patient was 9-year-old John who had a facial palsy and suddenly all movement on the left side of his face. He has been steadily improving but needed emotional support just as much as actual therapy. I can only imagine how hard it must be to be a 9 year old boy and unable to show emotion in half of your face. His dad told us that he was picked on a lot at school and completely stopped speaking even though his voice was fine and his annunciation normal. Unfortunately there isn’t a Speech and Language Pathologist at Central Regional but we tried to be creative in getting John to speak again. He was such a sweet kid and I just loved hanging out with him and watching his confidence increase. He bounded in at 8 am my last day to tell me about how he had come in first place in two of his classes that week – one of which was English and he had to read a story he wrote out loud. I was so impressed and warned him I would be popping back into the PT unit to make sure he was still talking loads after I was gone!
One of the most interesting patients I worked with was a 12-year-old girl named Lordina who was born with C1 C2 instability with a separation of 6.3 mm, which is nearly fatal. She had surgical fusion a couple of months ago but came in with zero strength in her lower limbs. She was gaining strength and was able to walk with the support of the parallel bars by the end of my time. Another interesting patient was Florence, a 21 year old involved in a road traffic accident in February. She has had two skin grafts since then to her right leg and 90% of the front surface is grafted skin. It took me a bit of time to get used to massaging the skin grafts and stretching them out but it was pretty remarkable! Laurel and I were also obsessed with Eric, a diabetic whose right leg was amputated below the knee. They don’t give prosthetics in Ghana so we were working towards getting his balance steady enough to use crutches. It was really hard work for him and he would joke that we were “physiotheorists” for making him exert so much effort. Eric was hilarious and we loved having him around; he was the only patient that made Laurel and I tear up saying goodbye. Yet as wonderful as PT was, I am sure the wards will be just as amazing. Mama Comfort is the in-charge nurse at the NICU and is really welcoming so I cannot wait to cuddle little babies all day! The NICU is connected to the pediatric ward so although I don’t officially head to pediatrics until midway through next week, I’ll be able to hop between the two!
Things in Ghana have been really great outside of my placement as well! It has been raining non-stop for a week and everyone is a bit stir-crazy. Even though June-August is the rainy season, it normally rains for a day and is then sunny for a day. But we haven’t seen the sun in a week! It is especially hard because life in Ghana literally shuts down when it is raining: teachers and students don’t show up for school, patients don’t show up for therapy, storeowners in town never open up. We’ve been sleeping a lot and watching DVDs but cabin fever is starting to set in!! This weekend was a nice break though; we stayed in Cape Coast because there was a beach party Saturday night for all the volunteers at a beach resort nearby. We spent Saturday night and most of the (sunless) day Sunday at the resort than went back to our friend’s house to watch the Confederation Cup Final. Soccer is absolutely huge everyone in the world but the US and all the volunteers have been following the Confederation Cup. I didn’t know any of this but the Confederation Cup is supposed to be a warm-up for the World Cup between all the teams that have won a Cup in the previous four years (World Cup, EuroCup, North American Cup, etc). The US were outstanding throughout the tournament and surprised everyone by ending up in the final vs. Brazil. We were so excited to watch the game even though no one was betting on a US victory. It looked hopeful at halftime with a score of 2-0 but Brazil came back to win 2-3. Bummer! Regardless though it was an incredible game and a blast to watch with all the volunteers!! I think that’s all I have to report as of now; missing everyone loads!!!
