Week One = Success!

We just finished our first week in the clinic!  For all of you following our blog, you know it has been an exciting and busy time for us here in Peru.  All of us agree, that although it has been rather chaotic with working in the clinic and traveling—it has been an absolutely incredible experience :-)  Today we arrived at the clinic bright and early and quickly got to work.  Although we are assigned to a different PT daily, we (students) often have to float around and help out wherever we’re needed :-)



Our resident hair expert ;-)

Today, Missy and I (Nora) got to work with an adorable 8 month old child!  With assistance and guidance from Jodee, we got to assess whether or not he had reached his milestones.  Not only was it interesting to see how he retained some primitive reflexes, but how natural it was to treat him and educate his mother on interventions.  Although we were a little nervous working with such a young patient, it was amazing how God calmed our nerves and cleared our minds to give him the best care we could in that situation. 

Fast forwarding to the end of the day…with our last patient of the day, Becca and I (Nora) were working with another PT to evaluate and treat a 10 year old who was diagnosed with “club foot” at birth.  He had actually gone under 8 different surgeries to try to correct the deformity!  However, after further examination and assistance from a PT who has worked with kids; it was decided he actually had a diagnosis of Arthrogryposis.  As students, we had never heard of this before.  Basically, it is a congenital neuromusculoskeletal disorder that causes muscle fatigue, poor mobility, and stiffness at multiple joints causing contractures (the inability to move an extremity through its entire motion).  Thought I’d throw some education in there because I know some of you may try to Google it later ;-)

Despite being exhausted from such a busy week, some of us battling a head cold and/or the massive amounts of bug bites from our hike the other day…we feel so thankful and humbled by all of our experiences this past week and are very excited for whatever God has to teach us in the upcoming week :-)

Tonight we will be packing and preparing for a weekend trip to Colca Canyon!  We also had a blast playing all sorts of games with all the kids from the children's home nearby.  Among them included dominoes, soccer, volleyball, & a very large game of spoons where we were constantly yoinking extra spoons and cards from kids pockets, haha.  Keep us in your prayers as we travel this weekend!

God bless,

Nora

Intently learnin espanol