Alfan- from Hospital to Home

Alfan and his classmate and neighbour, Pius
Sitting in the mud together
Serious face
Alfan's neighbour, Esther and her brother
Amina
Happy to be home
Sitting outside in the mud with the wooden stools... no chairs
Alfan and his sister Amina
He was happy to finally be mobile but still struggled with things like going to the toilet. The toilet they share with 6 other families is of course a squat over a pit... not something you can do with a full cast. His balance was very shaky and over the last 2 weeks I was there he got several dizzy spells.
The first day on crutches! There's no room in his home for using crutches as he lives in a one-room mud hut with his mother, 3 other siblings and a cousin. So we had to tackle it outside in the mud.
We did a lot of arty things over the 2 months
This was my view as sat behind Alfan on his bed and he leaned back on me and squeezed my hand. After it was all removed the doctor put the new cast on from his toes to his hip to protect the break as there was still movement between the broken pieces. I bought new crutches that day as we were leaving the hospital then but he was too afrai to use them until the next day in his own home. He has the new cast for 4 weeks, it's removed this weekend. After all the pulling for 2 months his knee was in a lot of pain and wouldn't bend so before I left I organised 15 physiotherapy sessions to sort out his movement and learning how to walk again.

The last day in traction! We were both a bit nervous about how the pin would be removed and had the option of a general anaesthetic but the doctor didn't recommend it. First the nurse untied the strings, then the doctor sawed the plaster cast off, then they cleaned the ends of the steel pin, attached a gripping device and then just pulled and twisted it out. It only took a few seconds and didn't hurt much apparently. I sat behind and held Alfan's hand and told him to just look at me, not at the nail and I just kept talking. He was quite afraid as he'd seen the pins taken out of other patients in the first hospital. He'd also seen millions of lice inside the plaster casts of other patients there, so we had a bet going to see if there'd be lice in his. I said 'no way' but he thought there were because it itched so much. I won!!!
We laughed for hours most times I visited
First happy moments in the new hospital, he was given a blanket and sheets and even a pillow!
You can see the long pin through his leg just below his knee, the ends of the pin were covered with old medicine bottles to protect his other leg

The day I moved him from the 'bad' hospital to the 'good' hospital. It hurt a lot to move him around, plus there was a lot of waiting so he wasn't very happy, but always brave. Here he was with his uncle waiting outside for his second x-ray. When we got the x-ray we were very disappointed as the inch and a half overlap hadn't really changed much at all. That day the new Doctor told us that he had had the wrong weight for the past 6 weeks and so increased it for a further 2 weeks in traction... 2 months in total in bed tied to a bag of rocks then sand!
In Paul's car as we waited to see the new specialist from Moshi, we waited for hours
Studying for the approaching exams

His beautiful mother

We began wheeling his bad outside for a more interesting view (and a better smell)
In Mt Meru Hospital - the government hospital with absolutely no hands on care at all. No on to help you wash, eat, go to the toilet etc. No supply of sheets or pillow... nothing. So I took 2 pillows and a set of sheets and a blanket for Alfan and many other things to help keep him occupied and to keep his spirits up.