Friday, August 24, 2012

W'apow mu e, 

We have gotten a day behind once again.  It seems that there is never a dull moment around here.

Yesterday, we drove to Cape Coast, which is about an hour and a half away.  A missionary lady who lives there is a beautician, and I needed a haircut.  After I got my hair cut, we went to the ocean.  The kids have been wanting to go to the ocean, but I had not been feeling up to it.  We thought that I was doing better and that it would be good to get out and get some fresh air.  By the time we got home, I was all done in.  It was a little too soon for an outing, I guess.

Just before we left the ocean, the boys and Bonnie were walking on a wall that was a couple feet off of the ground.  They had made several laps.  The boys had just finished their last lap, and Bonnie was on her way back to us when she lost her footing and fell off of the wall.  She landed on her arm.  She cried for a few minutes and then seemed okay.  By the time we got home, her arm had a bump next to her elbow.  We put some ice on it and gave her some pain medicine.  She slept through the night.

This morning, the whole area around her elbow was swollen, and if she had to lift that arm up at all, she was in pain.  Joe took her to the doctor.  He sent them to the Takoradi Hospital to get an x-ray done.  The radiologist who reads the x-rays was at a different hospital.  So, they had to go there.  Because of the traffic, it took them about an hour to get there.  They got the x-ray and then had to take it back to the doctor.  He looked at it and said that she has a buckle fracture on the head of the ulna (at the elbow).  The bone is not displaced, but it is fractured.  The arm needs to be immobilized for three to four weeks while the arm heals so that she doesn’t damage it more.  He sent them back to the hospital where they got the x-ray to get a cast put on.  The surgeon there said that there is only one man who does casts and that he is only in Takoradi on Thursdays.  In a town of one-million people – only one person who does casts and only on Thursdays!  Joe said at the main orthopedics center of the hospital, he only saw one person with a cast on.  They said that they don’t do casts here; they just let it heal.  No wonder we see so many disfigured people!  They tied her arm up with a piece of gauze and tied it behind her neck and said to come back on Thursday.  Joe is going to have another doctor look at the x-ray in the morning to see what he recommends.  Joe may have to take her to Accra to get a cast.  For now, we have it wrapped up with an ace bandage and in a sling of sorts.

The boys and I stayed home while Joe and Bonnie went all over town trying to find out about Bonnie’s arm.  The boys were worried about Bonnie.  Danny was glad to see that Bonnie’s arm was still in one piece; he must have thought they were going to cut her arm off.

Nantsew yie!

Joe, Laura, Gilbert, Danny, and Bonnie