Written on 06/10/10

Practice at transtibial rectification

Another proactive day today. A transtibial lady arrived for casting and measures to be taken for her first Jaipur limb, although she had her amputation over a year ago (last July). Very nice lady, and this was an opportunity to compare my technique for casting a transtibial socket against the way they currently do it here. To be honest, from the way Patrick best explained, it didn't sound too dissimilar, although there were a few extra anatomical landmarks that I use and they said that they hadn't. I've not yet seen the way they cast, so next time, I'll ask to see their methods.

Using that cast we went through rectification and I think that this served more as a reminder or revision on the topic. They said that they attended a training programme in Kabale (a city about an hours drive north east from here) a few years ago, and an American supposedly showed them the same concepts as I demonstrated to them today. We just discussed various areas for removal and addition of plaster and the reasons why. We also had enough time to rectify the transfemoral casts that we took yesterday, and Patrick copied the way I showed him on his own cast. Working up until about six pm, we draped the casts in pelite (a softish foam liner to go in the socket next to the skin within the prosthesis), and tomorrow we're going to attempt to complete as many of the three limbs as we can. Although it's Uganda's independence day on Saturday, we'll try to complete hers by that morning.

I was supposed to attend a Rotary club meeting this evening with Dr. Wanume, but he travelled to another rehabilitation centre further north from Kabale, in an area called Buluba today, and he was late getting back. Therefore, we're delaying that meeting and we're going to go on another day. Shame really, it would have been nice to attend that.

In other news, we still don't have running water here (hasn't been running since I got here), and the storage container is now empty. I hope they fix that pipe that burst sometime soon, because a shower (all be it a weak cold one) would be nice one day. Also tried a load of mad fruit, like this orangey/red banada called Matokay, and a big apple type thing with loads of really hard seeds in it designed to make it exceedingly difficult to eat.

Guavas from a tree in the garden in the GLRC