Perils of a left-handed pee!

VSO promises you a new experience. One I had not planned for is a left-handed pee. We’d had a pretty straightforward week and were wondering what to put on the blog. Maggie went off with Sallie to Kampala to shop for the hotel and I was planning a quiet weekend at home. I’d finished off a report on the chronic care clinic whilst sitting on the patio watching the birds. I then made a stupid error. I decided to try and fix the gutter which had been leaking. It’s fairly easy climbing up a ladder but it’s so much quicker falling down! I landed on my back on the concrete with my right arm underneath me. Luckily I did not hit my head. Once I had collected my thoughts I realised my shoulder was ‘spoilt’. I thought I’d dislocated it and tried to remember how to relocate it. Unfortunately this was extremely painful and I started to feel 'a little unwell'. As I was on my own, I was concerned I was going to pass out but managed to phone Olav, a fellow volunteer, to get him to come round. By the time Olav arrived I realised that I needed an x-ray. This isn’t a simple procedure in Masindi. I knew that the hospital didn’t have any x-ray films so we phoned the Supreme Clinic. Their x-ray machine was ‘spoilt’ but Daniel, the Clinical Officer, said to go down and he would look. Luckily Wilson, the radiographer from Masindi Hospital, was at the clinic. He said he would take a film from the Supreme to the hospital and x-ray me there. Wilson had had a stroke several months ago and had a left-hand hemiplegia. While I struggled to get into the front of Olav’s car with a very painful right arm, Wilson struggled to get into the back of the car with a hemiplegia. The x-ray was duly taken and showed a very nice fracture of the surgical neck of the humerus. By the time I arrived at the hospital, Rose the cleaner, Solomon the askari, plus Daryl, had all arrived to see how I was doing. I don’t know much about bones but I realised this fracture would need surgery and I would have to go to Kampala. I plucked up courage to phone Maggie and admit my stupidity and a taxi was arranged to take me to meet her in Kampala. The four hour trip with an unstable fracture is another experience that I hope never to repeat. Thanks to the VSO medical insurance I went straight to A & E at the International Hospital. After a quick assessment, Doctor Victor decided to put a back-slab on to stabilise the fracture and to admit me. He also gave me a shot of pethidine for which I was most grateful. Sunday morning I was seen by the orthopaedic consultant who said that the fracture needed to be plated. Unfortunately the special plate is not available in Uganda so he recommended re-patriation to the UK. Somehow the insurance company managed to get us a flight to Heathrow at 9.45 the following morning (flashing lights and sirens in the ambulance to Entebbe and then Business Class no less!). From Heathrow we were transferred to St George’s Hospital and now it is a matter of waiting until they can perform the operation. We don’t know when we will be able to return to Uganda.
Meanwhile, Chris is learning to do things left-handed; peeing is possible but cleaning teeth is a real challenge!