Thursday 23 February 2017

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.

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