Blog 23: Potso ?

African’s sometimes name their children in the circumstances they were born. The small boy sitting in front of me in a wheelchair has been named Potso by his mother, which is a question mark, or Why?  He has brittle bone disease and his deformed legs are completely folded underneath him, such that you wouldn’t know he had any legs. He is 12 years old and probably only weighs a few of stone.

I am assured he can look after himself, wash, dress, and go to the bathroom without any help. I watch amazed as very slowly he manages to climb out of his wheelchair and onto the floor. He leans forward onto his elbows; his bent legs flip up behind him as he puts his weight onto his knees, then he slides forward using his arms. Why a small boy should be faced with such an ordeal I don’t know, but how he overcomes the tough circumstances life has dealt him is a miracle indeed.

I am working at Saint Angela’s for at least a week while I wait for Action Irelands container to arrive with the equipment for Phelisanong.  As usual there have been some rather curved shaped balls to deal with and the management has gone a bit pear shaped here. It’s a question of learning from mistakes and rebuilding again from scratch. While this is very demoralising for everyone, on the bright side I don’t think there are any more mistakes left to made.  By happy coincidence Action Ireland are on hand to provide some corporate governance advice and surely the only way is up!  

There are 11 new children here at Saint Angela’s and I have assessing them this week and running a daily voluntary after-school physiotherapy club, for which there is no shortage of takers. I have been laid low with some mysterious illness since arriving and I have been very grateful for an extra pair of hands provided by Owen Hughes, who normally runs the pain management service for Powys teaching Health Board, the same health board I work for at home.

He is here on the ILO program, that I came with in 2016, and is doing some work assessing mental health resources in Lesotho. He probably did not expect this to involve being a physiotherapy assistant but has proved more than capable of adapting to the situation. He passes his first test and repairs a wheelchair with a roll of gaffer tape without blinking.

We both watch as “Star” bounces up and down on grossly bowed legs which look like a pair of bananas. Owen asks me if she complains of pain, but she doesn’t.  I can’t remember any of the dozens of children I have treated here over the last 2 years ever complaining about pain. The Powys pain service would be redundant here and Owen would be out of a job. I guess this says something about how different the societies of Wales and Lesotho are, and the very different heath expectations people have.

I try to provide a few practical solutions to some of the daily problems the children have here. Star gets tired walking any distance on her bow legs and I find her a pair of crutches to use for school. Blankets and pillows provide some padding for the children whose wheelchairs don’t fit. Potso’s wheelchair is miles too big for him and has no cushion. A thick blanket makes it much more comfortable. I stuff three pillows around a girl with a terrible scoliosis to try and fill in the gaps and support her spine. The children spend all day in their wheelchairs and go to school in them, so it’s important they are as comfortable as possible.

There is one girl who is eating off the floor like a dog, as she is unable to control a bowl of food on her lap. She is wheelchair dependent and I think has a type of cerebral palsy called athetosis. This means she has uncontrolled movements which she tries to overcome by holding onto a steady point of control. The tables at Saint Angela’s are too high for her to use and there are no chairs, hence she has ended up eating her meals on the floor.            

After trying several different solutions, a raid on the preschool produces a small table and chair and a way forward. She can sit at the table and lean across it, holding on with one hand, while she feeds with the other hand.  Action Ireland help me out with some of the many other problems that need sorting, and I can’t thank them enough for the many favour they have done for me since I met first them. God bless the Irish for their kindness, generosity and good humour.

They fix the broken tiles on the physio floor, adjust wheelchair footplates and go in search of a charger for an electric hoist which is desperately needed for a quadriplegic boy. He is very heavy and can only move his hands. Currently the men are having to dead lift his weight from the floor and its only a matter of time before someone gets badly injured. A working hoist will be much better for everyone.

It’s the end of the first week. The girls sit on the gym floor colouring pictures, like little girls love to do all over the world. Kats and Kamo are playing floor football, Kamo using his deadly spin kick to score goals. John shows us that his cerebral palsy does not inhibit his unique dancing talent. One of the girls with a hemiplegia manages to walk with a rather strange looking tripod stick I have found in a cupboard. A couple of the others do some walking with the aid of the parallel bars and guidance from Owen

Potso pushes a small truck in front of him across the floor and speaks to the little people he loads in and out the back. He patiently builds up a wall using small colourful bricks and looks up and gives me a shy smile. So many “Whys” I can’t answer this week, but the kids always come shining through with their smiles, accepting what “is” and dealing with what’s in front of them, one day at a time.