Screening Day(s)

After a lot of preparation and briefings, screening day ended up arriving a day early for us in the orthopedic department.
We started on Wednesday the 18th with a “small” early screening that was set up by the local social services department for pediatric orthopedic patients.  We showed up to the local office and found at least 75 children and quite a few adults already lined up and ready for us to screen them for orthopedic problems as well as facial tumors and many other maladies.  We hurriedly set up and started the slow process of seeing patients and trying to graciously turn away those non-orthopedic problems.  As the day went on, more people showed up, and I think we ended up seeing well over 100 kids with orthopedic issues, and we only had 2 surgeons.

One of the first set of patients that we saw were a set of twins with bowed legs.  They are a little girl and boy, and their names differ only by an inflection over one letter, which of course only adds to how cute they are.  They’re about 4 years old, and we decided that we would be able to help them both, so we scheduled them for surgery the during the first week.  For some reason bowing of the legs seems to be a common orthopedic problem in this area of the country, and we have seen it over and over during our screenings.  Although these kids can get around without many problems right now, the bowing will cause them much pain and disability as they get older.  In the US they would be put in braces at a very young age, and would probably have early surgeries if needed.  But in Benin, they don’t get any early intervention, and as a result, there were many children that we saw who had such severe deformities that we were not able to help them out.  Here are some pictures of the kids we saw.  As you can see they had no trouble having fun and running around.

Wednesday was a long, hot day as we were working outside. There were so many kids to see that we didn’t want to take a break.  We were able to spend a good amount of time with each child and their parents, which we were not able to do at the big screening, and were able to explain to them their problems whether we could help or not.  We saw many bowed legs or knocked knees, clubbed feet, congenital deformities, old broken bones, frozen knee joints, and many many children with some form of cerebral palsy.

The children with cerebral palsy were definitely the hardest for me.  I could see the hope in the family’s eyes as they carried their child to us, thinking  that we could fix their arms and legs so that they could walk and be normal.  It was difficult to tell them that there was no surgery that could be done to “fix” them.  What amazed me most though, was their reaction.  At first their face would fall, and they would try to make sure they had understood us.  Then they would pick up their child, smile, and simply say thank you.

I don’t know why that picture is so powerful to me.  Maybe it’s because I felt so helpless in telling them there was nothing to be done.  I like to be able to fix things, and I was powerless to help them, yet the people still thanked me.  It’s a good reminder to me that I can’t do everything on my own, and while we may not be able physically heal everyone, we are here to be a blessing to all that we come in contact with.  That may mean giving someone a life changing surgery, or doing something as simple as listening to them and acknowledging what they are going through.

We finished the Wednesday screening sweaty and tired, and then turned right around and headed out at 6 AM Thursday morning for the hospital wide screening day.  Thousands of people showed up and waited in line all day long to see a physician, and because there were so many, we extended the screening on in to Friday.  I continued with orthopedic screenings, and we saw many of the same problems in the children, as well as numerous un-healed broken bones in adults, mostly from zemijhan accidents (yet another reason to not get on a zemijhan if I can help it).  This is a picture of a man that had a rod placed in his leg for a broken bone, and somehow the screws broke, so now the rod is actually coming out of his leg.  Hopefully one of the adult surgeons will be able to take it out and avoid an infection in his leg.

Our screening area was located right next to the plastic and oral and maxillofacial surgeons.  So all day we could see the patients coming in with large facial tumors or deformities, hoping that they might be helped.  Many of these patients have benign tumors that started out as a small lump, and in the US it would have been recognized and taken off in a routine day surgery.  But here they don’t have the money to get them removed, and eventually the tumor grows so big that even though it’s not cancer, it will kill the patients by cutting off their air supply.  Most of the people have found some way to cover their tumors, and it was touching to watch the gentleness and care that the surgeons used as they took away the coverings, and examined their tumors.  It was hard to see these people with such a horribly disfiguring problem, but it also makes me excited to get to be a part of radically changing these patient’s lives.

There were many other types of patients that were seen that day as well, and I’d love to tell you about every single service we perform, but I think I’ll add those stories as the year progresses.  I think for all that were involved, the process of seeing this many people with severe, and many times preventable problems was heartbreaking and yet exciting at the same time, because we are actually able to help them.

For me, these days of screening heightened my awareness of the amount of suffering that goes on around me, and it’s something that I will always struggle to understand.  But I also know that we all are broken people, and that even through our brokeness we can lift others up, and in doing so, catch a glimpse of the kingdom of God coming to earth.  Jesus showed that his kingdom was a place where “the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” (Matthew 11:5)  We are able to live Jesus words out in a very tangible way as we take out cataracts, straighten legs, remove life threatening tumors, and give a new start to those that have become the outcasts of society, and I’m excited to be a part of that.

**We were asked not to take pictures of the patients during screening, as many of them had to have courage just to come out in public.  So having lots of people around taking pictures would have been disrespectful and hurtful to them.  The public relations staff were the only ones that took pictures during the day.  So I have a link on the side to a few of the images of the day.**