Blessed!

The combined physiotherapy team for 2 weeks

What REALLY goes on in physio...FUN!! :-D

Fran working with a patient in home care

Paradise is not always paradise for those who live here! As a tourist to St. Lucia, one sees beautiful resorts and inspiring sights like Gros Piton, the waterfalls, the beaches… These make for a wonderful vacation but provide little to no insight into the actual country and the people we call St. Lucians!

St. Lucians are a beautiful people who are warm and caring but St. Lucia really is a developing nation where yes, there is wealth but there is also abject poverty. We have been able to glimpse into this society on so many levels.

Today, Frances and Barb accompanied Mr. Steve Joseph, from the Council for Disability on home care visits. In the US we are outraged when our patients are approved to receive only 5 or 10 home care visits. Here, in Vieux Fort, a home care visit is made when there is a physiotherapy volunteer. Subsequently, a patient might not be seen for even a year or so…

Our first patient had a severe stroke with resultant right hemiplegia 6-months ago. We were the first health care provider to see this lady since her hospitalization. Her family cares for her totally. She is carried from bed to the couch each morning and back each night. We had great difficulty getting her to stand; she has the potential but… we hope the family can put into place some of our recommendations.

Opening the door leading to an outdoor shower

Our second patient lived in a room around 200 sq ft with his wife. He is recovering from a severe brain injury. His spasticity is so severe. If only he could receive a script for baclofen and afford it, his function would be amazing. This gentleman worked so very hard. As we looked at his meager belongings, so very little, we were in awe at how much progress he has made. We used so many items in his apartment to do modified modified constraint induced therapy and bimanual training. We are sure when we left, he will have plenty to work on in the next few months! He was truly an inspiration and was so very thankful for the services we provided. He eloquently described his faith and putting God first!

We’ll only mention one more patient. As Mr. Joseph stated our next patient’s name, Frances and Barb remarked that we knew her! Yes, it was the same patient who told Frances she loved her when she was seen last week in the hospital. Too very cool! Frances had her work on balance and strengthening activities in the home and even walked her outside where she caught her and prevented a fall! Her shower was outside, down 4 steps, very uneven terrain with roosters and dogs en route to the outdoor shower enclosed in corrugated metal.

We are truly blessed and are not thankful enough for the things we take for granted!

And each of our patients were so grateful for what we did for them. We felt like it was nothing but to them, it was hope--a chance to recover!

Later that day, Barb said “good afternoon, how are you?” to a cleaning person in the hospital, she commented, “blessed!” 

Steph educating on kinesiology taping

Back at the clinic, Steph and Becca helped out the rest of the staff take care of all the patients there.  Then later this afternoon, Steph led the day's in-service with education on kinesiology taping (that fancy colorful tape you see on Olympic athletes). 

A view into one of our minibus adventures

After work we traveled via minibus to the fishing village of Dennery.  After receiving a personal tour by a nice young gentleman we met on the bus, we began exploring the little town on our own.  We were able to stop at a bakery, visit a church, meet several villagers, and watch the fishing boats come in for the day. It was comical for a toddler to come up to Barb and touch her skin then run away. Needless to say, being white, we were an anomaly in this village.

A view of Dennery, a local fishing village

We felt very blessed again as the sun was setting west of Dennery, we were 29 km away from Vieux Fort, and after about 30 minutes we were able to get a ride back to town!  

Upon arriving back at the apartment this evening we turned on the local Cricket match to try and figure out what all the hype is about.  It is very popular here and the semi-finals are being held up north in Castries where we explored on Saturday.  We have only been semi-successful at figuring it out by trial and error.  We eventually turned to Google which cleared things up quite a bit, as usual ;-)