Fractured: an update

After my last blog, I thought people would like to know how David (not his real name) is getting on.

Happily I can say he is doing well.  He had his surgery at 7.30am the morning after he arrived with us at Guinebor II Hospital.  Our senior nurse surgeon successfully put a metal rod and screws in his femur in order to bring the two ends of bone together.  It wasn’t an easy process he tells me.  The day after surgery, David was wide awake and chatting away to us.  We wheeled him down to our x-ray department and took some pictures of his leg to check positioning of the rod and screws.  The nurse surgeon was ecstatic to see that the placement of the rod and screws was good and that the two ends of bone were well aligned.  Unfortunately, we don’t yet have any way of printing out our x-rays, we have a digital x-ray machine and look at the images on a computer screen.  Hopefully in the future we’ll be able to print out peoples x-rays.  As such, we wheeled David over to look at the computer screen and see his x-ray.  Being a nurse, he knew what he was looking at and the nurse surgeon explained how well the surgery had gone and that the metal rod was in a good position.  David’s sole response was ‘gloire à Dieu’ (glory to God).  He was so pleased with the outcome of his surgery. 

The next challenge was to fit David out with some crutches so he could be mobile.  He is a tall guy, measuring 192cm (6 feet 3 inches) and none of the crutches we had in stock were long enough!  We have a man in town that makes crutches for us out of wood.  This necessitates a phone call to him to place an order.  We have a standard size that we usually ask him to make, that’s adjustable to a certain extent, but David required a size over and above that which we usually stock here.  My colleague called the crutches-maker and explained as best she could the size of the crutches we needed, and the length we needed them to be adjustable to.  This was done in French obviously, which is not her first language as she’s American.

'Just when you think you have arrived at communicating
well in your second language, this happens....'

We had a good laugh at the size of the crutches that materialised, and so did David!  Fortunately, someone on site at the hospital was able to adjust them down to a size suitable for him.

So as for his leg, David is doing well.  The incision wound is healing well.  What is concerning now is that he’s having near-constant headaches, which is probably a concussion from the accident.  He’s still with us in hospital in order for us to keep an eye on his incision wound, but also to monitor his headaches.  He is doing better every day.

Thank you to those who have been praying for him.  I told him yesterday that a lot of people in the UK and elsewhere around the world are praying for him, and he is so very grateful.  Please continue to pray for his recovery.

Fractured

At the end of last week, my Chadian pharmacist colleague and I were having to frantically buy plaster of Paris.  All part and parcel of running a pharmacy in a hospital here in Chad.  As I’ve no doubt recounted numerous times, it’s not just medicines that we have to ensure are available, but also many other medical supplies.

We’d had a good stock of plaster of Paris, ready and waiting for anyone who needed a limb putting in a cast.  All of a sudden, the hospital was seemingly inundated with people with fractures and our stock was exhausted in a matter of days.  The senior nurse surgeon who works here came into the pharmacy asking us to ensure that we had a good stock of this product.  We went to the wards where he pointed out three guys who were waiting for plaster casts; two with leg fractures and one with an arm fracture.  And we’d run out of plaster of Paris.  I hate it when that happens!  Within a few hours we’d managed to find enough in town to get all of these patients in their respective casts and we breathed a sigh of relief.

Why so many bones fractures?  They are mainly due to road accidents.  Many people travel on motorbikes as they’re a cheap form of transport.  It’s very unusual to see one person on a motorbike.  A motorbike owner will always offer a lift to someone else travelling in the same direction.  Throw in the traffic here and the fact that people carry all sorts of stuff on the back of a motorbike and you’ve soon got a recipe for fractured bones. 

Two on a motorbike, plus a bench and some paint

Fast-forward to this morning.  I was in the pharmacy and my Chadian colleagues were talking in one of the village languages and I couldn’t understand what they were saying.  Apart from the fact that they kept saying the name of one of our nurses here (let’s call him David, that’s not his real name.  He’s in his mid-twenties).  I asked what was up with David.  They said they weren’t sure but that someone had come in saying he’d been involved in an accident last night and was asking if he was in our hospital.  ‘No’ my colleagues replied.  The man departed but my colleague tried calling David’s phone.  No answer.  He tried another nurse who lives near David, who said he’d try and find out what was going on.  A few hours later he calls back saying that David is in the central hospital with a fractured femur after being knocked off a motorbike by a car last night.  Cutting some to-ing and fro-ing short, eventually our hospital driver goes and collects David in our ambulance.  He brings him to us at Guinebor Hospital, so that he can be in a place he knows and also much nearer his home, so that it’s easier for his family to visit.  We hear that he’s received little in the way of care at the central hospital because he didn’t have much money with him.  No money up-front, no healthcare it would seem.  He arrives with us with a copy of his leg x-ray and a makeshift cast on his leg made out of cardboard and some bandages. 

Our senior nurse surgeon, the one who asked us to make sure we’ve got enough plaster of Paris in stock, is hoping to operate on David’s leg very soon.  And it's likely he’ll be using some of the remaining plaster of Paris that we frantically acquired last week.  I’m glad David is here with us at Guinebor now, amongst colleagues who will care for him.  The staff here are like one big family and it’s hit me that ‘one of our own’ has had to endure such a serious accident and then apparently sub-optimal care at the central hospital.

Those reading this who pray, please pray for David’s recovery and also for all of the staff at Guinebor Hospital as we seek to ensure we have enough supplies and enough personnel to deal with all the cases that come through the door.  Thank you :)