After the OR: Recovery on the Ward!

Today you'll see the ward in action. CAMTA nurses and the Tierra Nueva nurses working literally arm in arm (a brazo a brazo)

Here's Janet, the physio again with Kathleen Shearer. This little guy had a epiphysiodesis. If you want to know what is look it up. He had an infection in one knee and that changed the rate of growth. Look at that nice red cast -- courtesy of 3M.

Here's Darlene Hammell and Adela Sandigo. Adela is an RN and Spanish is her first language. That's so very handy since everybody can come running to Adela and get a first hand answer. Fern Cannon is from Cuenca but lives with her three children and husband in Katy, Texas. Fern has been a participant in our missions since 2002.

That's Marta in the middle between Adela and Deb Chalupa. Deb is a pro at orthopedic nursing since she is in charge of the orthopedic ward at the Misericordia Hospital. Martha is a long time nurse at the Tierra Nueva. She knows all the ins and outs of requisitions and lab tests.

Now look closely here. This young woman is ambulating on the stairs. Mom's at the bottom and watching Janet and Craig help her learn how to handle stairs with muleta's. That's crutches in Spanish.

But now a little surgery. Here's a club foot that was partially treated. This young girl is walking on the side of her foot. There was no possibility of a functional foot.

Notice on the right x-ray how the foot is turned inwards.

The only possibility to help this young woman was to fuse the ankle. Here's the final result with the pins to stabilize the joint while the bones fuse together.


Isn't this a beautiful shot of a happy family! That's student nurse Adrienne Robson kneeling and Clinical Nurse Educator Christina Hanna on the right. Everybody is just glowing!

Dr. Darlene Hammell examines Rodrigo. He's one of three patients this week who had bilateral hip replacements. The down side to a bilateral is higher blood loss. But they don't have to wait a year to get the second hip replaced.

This handicapped teenager is very happy but quite handicapped from her CP. She's quite smar upstairs and gave a number of us a drawing of mountains or houses done on her notepad. She was practicing her letters in a scribbler. Angela had tendon releases on both legs to improve her spasticity.

I had to include this shot because you can see just how bad this man's painful limp from his hip arthritis is. Note how he's tipped to one side as he is assisted by Eve Moreau and Heather Perl down the hall to the quirofanos. That's operating room in Spanish.

Here's another Pablo all tucked in and with sedation on board during his spinal anesthetic. I included this picture to show his sun-creased face from decade working in his field's to grow a crop on 5 acres to feed his family and sell for some cash.

We have one more day to operate! And then there is the big packing bee late on Friday to prepare some items for storage at the Tierra Nueva and others (such as the instruments) for return to Edmonton in the hockey bags. And we will say some sad goodbyes to our surgical nurses from the Tierra Nueva. The goodbyes for the nurses on the ward will be on the weekend because we'll still have patients in the hospital recovering from their late week surgery.

Thanks!