3rd of Work

Today was a busier than yesterday. I’m having a hard time getting use to the slow pace of life here. I don’t need constant stimulation from technology but I did not realize how reliant upon it I have become. The evenings are really hard for me still because I’m so use to surfing the internet, while watching TV, while playing words with friends on my iphone. Okay, maybe I lied! I loved my technology! Haha!

Work today was very interesting. I’m seeing a lot of patients who had strokes. All of these patients had their strokes months ago though so unfortunately it is too late for me to make a huge difference. However, I can still work with them for awhile to allow them to get a little stronger.

I went on an extremely interesting home visit. Two relatives of a lady who was in a horrible car accident 3 months ago came to the hospital today asking if I could walk to their house with them to help their ‘Auntie’ walk again. We walked to the outskirts of town. We were far enough out of town that I do not believe these people had electricity. They did not have running water either. The lady was sitting up in a wheelchair. After talking to her, I quickly learned that she is a paraplegic. I’m guessing about L1 or L2 level since she did not have much sensation from the waist down, but had good sitting balance in bed indicating that the abdominal muscles are still working. The family has been doing a 2 person fireman lift to get her in and out of bed. They did not realize that you can wheel her in her wheelchair over the threshold outside the 1 room house. I showed them how to clear the threshold with her still in the wheelchair. Then I showed her how to wheel her wheelchair around the 10x10 foot area outside that was level dirt. She was very happy to get outside. However, I had to tell her that walking was not a realistic goal. I plan on seeing her 3-5x/week with Celestine and Doris to instruct her in bed to wheelchair transfers. I instructed the family on making a slide board for her out of wood so she can slide on it from the bed to the wheelchair. Hopefully, they understood my dimensions. Last thing I did, I instructed them on positioning and pressure relief. She has already developed large areas of eschar on her heels (eschar is black dead tissue). If those areas open up she is prone to infections. Wound infections can be deadly. Christopher Reeves (who had the best medical care in the world) died of infection from pressure sores. I told her the importance of leaning side to side in her chair and performing wheelchair push ups every hour in order to prevent pressure sores on her bottom. Tomorrow, I plan on giving her some theraband so she can start performing arm strengthening exercises. Once the slide board is made, we will use it for transfers.

I can’t believe the variety of patients I’ve already seen in 3 days. I think they are slowly crawling out of the woodwork. I’m glad because its what I want to do here! I will continue to post about ‘Auntie’ and her progress.

Love, Kari