I just got an email from Dr. Anderson about one of the patients that came to Soddo while I was there. Here he is sitting with Dr. Anderson.
This guy is 17 years old and fell out of a tree a day or two before he made it to Soddo. When he came to us, he could not move anything below his neck, but still had sensation throughout his body. This is good because it means that the spinal cord is not completely severed and it is likely that on the front part of the cord is damaged.
We got some xrays that you can see below. It's a little tricky to see, but the vertebrae right at the level of the shoulders were squished down from their original squares into triangles. I did my best to outline what I'm talking about with a little Microsoft paint. The red triangle on the bottom should be virtually square and the left edge should be in the same line as the left border of the square above it. For the top vertebrae, the red outline shows about where the bone actually is and the yellow on the top shows where it probably should be.
At the time we were unsure if we should take care of him at Soddo or he would be better off going to a neurosurgeon who works a few towns over at Bethlehem. However, this would mean several hours of travel, likely in the back of a bumpy pickup truck, and would very likely worsen his injury.
Instead, Dr. Anderson elected to operate at Soddo. Below you can see the pictures from after the operation. For the first part of the surgery, Dr Anderson made a cut on the back side of the neck and very carefully placed wires around bony arch where the spinal lives. Obviously, this is quite dangerous as any slight movement could damage the spinal cord itself. These wires are pointed out by the arrow and were wrapped together to fuse the spine. For the next part of the surgery, Dr. Anderson brought in Dr Gray and I (I was on general surgery at the time) so that he could get at the spine from the front of the neck. There are many important structures here like your jugular, carotid arteries, esophageus (food tube), trachea (breathing tube) that could be injured during this approach to the spine. Fortunately, everything went well and Dr. Anderson was able to move some bone from his hip to his neck and over time it would fuse the three separate vertebrae into one solid chunk that is outlined in the yellow box.
Shortly after this surgery I had to return to the US and did not hear how this patient did. However, just yesterday, Dr. Anderson sent me these pictures and told me that he has regained movement of almost his entire body!! His hands are still not 100% but he can almost run and jump!!
Also amazingly, he comes from an extremely poor family and they could not pay for any of his medical care. Fortunately, Soddo has a benevolent fund, donated from Westerners for patients like him. Not only was he able to walk again, but it was given to him for free!!
I can't help but think of how this story parallels our story with Christ. Without Christ, we are paralyzed in our sin and have absolutely no means to pay to get it fixed. Yet while we were still in this sad state, God completely healed us and whats more, He did it without any cost to us.
I would also like to put out a shameless plug for my buddy's blog http://jeremiahjohnsonblog.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/welcome/ In just a few weeks, Jeremiah gets to go on a similar trip to Kenya and I know that I cannot wait to hear about his experiences. Godspeed man!!
Until next time, I hope that you all stay warm and can enjoy some of the snow!!
In Him,
David
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