Update

Lydia update: Lydia wounds continue to require a great deal of care. It will take many months to clear it all up, alongside physio and occupational therapy. Currently she is practically kept in air-con as many hours per day as we can, to keep humidity low and sweat down. She can't leave the site for risk of infection. We have found that even a few hours out in the heat with her dressing and brace on is enough to create a whole new bag of worms to deal with. We have modified her brace heavily, but it is still not enough for the conditions we face. We have found a combination that appears to be working (in conjunction with Medical professionals in Germany with extensive African experience). She does not always understand her challenges. Together we are working to resolve issues caused by ignorance and poor historical treatment. Sadly, there are still many who do not understand the care that is needed - some give well meaning but destructive advice. Ignorance (whether locally or internationally) is damaging so many young people in West Africa - our role is to protect and promote - but it is not always easy. Patricia Mawuli and I wish we could inoculate against ignorance.

First pin on the map from Ghana

Lydia was able to put a pin in Ghana on the hospital map.

Supported in her geography studies during hospitalisation in Germany by Onni, Lydia was invited to add a navigation string to the hospital map as part of her understanding the continents and adding to the list of countries patients have travelled from to the hospital.

As you can see, Lydia was the first patient from West Africa - and she was an excellent ambassador for the rural people of her part of the world.

An amazing improvement

Lydia is out of hospital. Not only is she out of hospital, she is smiling and looking forward to returning to Ghana to complete her pilots licence and carry out essential health education training to the rural communities.

Lydia's life has changed dramatically over the past three and a half years, and these x-rays showing the change in her hand position, really bring home how much this amazing young woman has gone through.

Our sincere thanks go out to the hospital at Bad Neustadt in Germany and to Professors Lanz and van Shoonhoven for their amazing skill in carrying out this surgery.

The MoM Germany team has led this event, and without them it could not have come together. Their fundraising, logistics and support enabled a smooth facilitation of this event. A large 'Vielen Danke' to our German team and all from around the world who have contributed towards 'Changing Lydia's life'.

Two wings are better than one.... ?

Lydia goes from strength to strength. .. today we kidnapped her from the hospital to the airfield nearby.

Here she takes a closer look at a flamingo replica (an aircraft type from 1925). Lydia talks with passion about using her creative skills in combining aviation and health education in the coming years

Learning radio work

Lydia (yellow shirt) is in charge of teaching radio work to the academy students. Good communication is essential for our outreach. Although English is the official language of Ghana it is rarely the mother tongue in the home.

What better way to encourage improved communication standards than through radio telephony.

Lydia heads for surgery this week and will miss her students as much as they will miss her.

Up and at'm...

Lydia is smiling. Happy with her new hand position. All fingers and thumb are working. Wrist is fused (as is elbow but that is from last surgery). Thank you all for your amazing support and encouragement to help us get this far.

Lydia is bright and playing oware, a traditional African game, as she gets ready to start physical therapy tomorrow.

5 Hours later... it's all looking FANTASTIC so far

Surgery completed. 5 hrs 2 surgeons.

About 30 degree position. She smiles.

UPDATE

Lydia says a big thank you and good night.

All fingers are moving.  Hand is fused at 30 degree from straight.  A very function potential filled position.

Thank you for your kind support and encouragement.

 

 

Here we Go!!!

Xrays examined .....

 

 Headed down for Surgery....

Checked in and ready

Yesterday Lydia was admitted to the hand surgery unit in Bad Neustadt.

Supported by Patricia and Angelika, as well as a host of others, she will undergo extensive surgery on her right wrist and hand today.

We would like to thank all who have made this surgery a possibility - many we know personally others we can only feel your caring and hope to meet you one day.

Particular thanks to the German team who have persevered to bring this about.

MoM is truly an international team dedicated to changing lives for a sustainable future or those in the rural parts of Ghana.

Thank you all for being a part of this change.

Nurse Lydia

Lydia's first unassisted first aid. Today Lele crushed part of his finger and came to the first aid post.

Patricia and I were working on the drop aircraft and asked Lydia to check it out.

10 minutes later the wound was cleaned and dressed. The patient was happy and Lydia had carried out cleaning and dressing to the book.

This is what sustainable development is all about.

Well done Lydia.

Flying a desk... for now..

Lydia now has her own desk, computer and joystick - thanks to generous donations.

Lydia has transitioned from student to employee and with it comes a lot more responsibilities.

In September she will travel to Bad Neustadt in Germany for further surgery, this time on her hand.

After the surgery she will not only be better equipped to use the computer but also to fly more easily.

Lydia is determined to show that she is a good investment and wants to be an example of success for disabled African girls.

Smile!!!!

Lydia discovered Polaroid cameras and worked out her geometry to get it to function. We have a number of volunteers on site at this time and are using the Polaroid snaps to make a collage. The camera was kindly provided by Rex and Melissa Pemberton who are currently working on a Red Bull documentary about all that goes on at Kpong!

Creativity is key to development. Sadly in many of the the communities we drop to there is little opportunity for much more than hand to mouth subsistance farming.

Perhaps one day soon we will see Lydia flying out to communities and using such a camera as part of her health education delivery. ..

Sadly lack of funds continues to affect our desired development profile.

Paging nurse Lydia....

Lydia got to practice her ever improving first aid skills when I nicked my fingers in the workshop this week.

She really does have the skills and understanding, and is ever day adding experience, necessary to handle many of the minor injuries that lead to serious complications such as she herself suffers from daily.

If only somebody had these simple skills when she was younger. ...

Field maintenance.. sometimes it's a balancing act...

With a constant need to maintain a secure site, the 4km of fencing needs constant checking. Lydia its sending fresh supplies to the fencing crew- water, binding wire and a chunky hammer, which will remain perfectly balanced as she walks the 2 km track to where the supplies are needed...

A Holistic Learning Environment

What really struck me today is that the girls are learning in a holistic environment that is possible only because we have three organizations working together – Medicine on the Move, WAASPS and the AvTech academy.

This morning, it was time for the generator to get its oil change, so Patricia gathered all the girls, and with everyone squeezed in the generator room, she taught the girls about engines and the reasons why engines need oil. At the same time, the girls could see the difference between old and new oil, and experience the oil handling along with all the sights and sounds of a generator set.

In the afternoon, an aircraft needed a new windscreen, which had to be cut out of a sheet of Lexan. The girls observed how this was done and also got a chance to learn about the material by cutting out some very smooth doughnut shapes.

In between, when talking about standard bolt sizes, we got into a deep conversation about fractions and how to visualize the mathematics of fractions. Finally, the girls practiced demonstrating some health training scenarios: wound management and solar water disinfection. Lydia did a great job simulating the irrigation of Beatrice’s wound!

When I went to university in the last century, it was almost all theory, so I’m a little jealous of the girls’ learning environment – theory and practice, technology and health care. It’s all part of their day!

Aircraft related care and physio...

We often use what we have for exercises, rehab and therapy, and Lydia is often the most needy recipient.

Whilst in Oshkosh, Veronica from Aircraft Tool Supply provided us with some lovely T shirts to help with the girls on site, and then Steve from Zenith kindly gave Lydia a specially modified cleco plier for her smaller hand size..

Each morning Lydia does exercises in her arm brace, and from tomorrow that will include cleco manipulation with that special plier in her disabled hand..It is the combination of large and small gifts that enable us to care for young people like Lydia, and we plan on doing a lot more in the coming years... Together, changing lives, one flight, one cleco at a time

Lydia update....

Whilst in the USA Lydia met with some outstanding people with specialisms in hand surgery. It was made very clear that any surgery to correct her hand, at this point, would result in a loss of function. Consequently, we are continuing with the long term night-time bracing that is already helping a little, thanks to help from a German doctor.

Whilst in the USA Lydia helped with the build of a CH750 and also in the repair of the tornado damaged factory demonstrator CH750, proving that nothing is beyond her determination.

Lydia is a brave girl and has decided that she wants her Pilot's Licence within the next year. She has grown up so much recently, we all believeshe can make it!

Spreading the word

Whist travelling to the USA, Lydia Wetsi, MoM's amazing disabled teenage health educator and student pilot, was offered the opportunity to sit left seat in a Boeing 767. Delta's Captain Mike was brilliant in sharing the larger aviation concepts with a 'smaller aviation person'. Lydia quickly realised that there is little difference between the 767 and the Zenith CH701 that she is learning to fly. Lydia was able to provide some useful health education to people attending Oshkosh 2012, Wisconsin, during her stay. She provided full details to pilots on how to use SODIS (link to the SODIS poster please) to purify river water either for camping or in survival situations. Folks from the USA, Canada and South America listened to every word coming from Lydia's mouth, as she described the simple yet effective water purification system that she has also taught many times in Ghana, and will be repeating many more times in the years to come. Joining hands across the Atlantic has boosted her confidence to speak, sharing health education - the key to a healthier, more productive and more socio-economically sustainable rural populations in West Africa.

The Seagull

You may have read the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. If you haven't, then you really have missed out on one hour of the most amazing reading on the planet. The story is one about standing up and being different, doing things that are not 'everyday' for a seagull. It has many analogies to our everyday lives and most people find a personally touching moment or two in reading it. Part of the story is about a seagull called 'Kirk Maynard Seagull', a disabled seagull with damaged wings that learns to fly. For me, and others who know what we do in the bush, the story of 'Kirk Maynard' reminds us of Lydia. In fact, Lydia herself loves the book, given to our library by Onni and Angelika earlier this year.

When reading the book, young Ghanaians struggle to grasp 'what a seagull is', since most of them have never seen one. Therefore, when we stopped in the car park of Walmart in Oshkosh last week and a seagull landed next to the car, the excitement amongst Patricia and Lydia was in-containable. Opening the doors of Clay's van (the Webmaster), cameras in hand, two young women ran across the hot tarmacked surface, dodging trolleys, just to get a closer look and hoping for a picture of this 'rare' bird.

Passers by stared and smiled, wondering if this was a precursor to a TV reality show wondering what on earth was going on. For the 'seagull watchers' it was a moment of pleasure, the coming to life of the images in a book that has touched their lives in many ways.

Flying high at AirVenture 2012

Three MoM volunteers have spent the week at Oshkosh, not fund raising, but raising awareness, sharing with the supporting organisations of the operations at Kpong, and meeting with those who have followed our progress.  This trip and all the practical arrangements and scheduling was only made possible by the kind support of several of you reading this, and we thank you all.  Lydia Wetsi - the young woman of small stature and a big story came too, after long trail of paperwork for passport and visa!  'Ringmaster and web-lord', Clay made sure we were all where we were meant to be!  Lydia was met by many people who commented on how her story inspired them - an a amazing knock on effect of the operations in Ghana.  One gentleman with an incurable disease came specially to have his picture taken with Lydia 'You are such an inspiration to me' he said, adding 'I have read all about you and watched the videos with you in - I am very proud of you!'  It is wonderful for Lydia to pay back some inspiration to those in the developed world who have been instrumental in her positive story.  Such feedback is also a massive boost to her development, and a vote of confidence in the approach and outcomes of our operations. We all loved meeting those who came up and told us 'I read about you!'.... it was very special.

Once again, we were based at the Zenith Booth, the company who provides the 'plans and kit parts' of the aircraf that we build and use.

Whilst at Oshkosh Lydia met with her 'heroine', Jessica Cox, the only certified pilot without arms in the world, and if that were not enough, they were together with the amazing Melissa and Rex Pemberton, regulars at Kpong Airfield, role models, mentors and supportive advocates of the outreach and training programmes that we are involved in.

During a walk between two appointments, Lydia had the opportunity to board a C17 Globemaster and chat with medical aviation experts who operate at the top end of the scale in the cavernous belly of the disaster theatre aircraft - it provided an inspiration to all of as toeards the long-term aim of a flying ambulance, at some point in the future...

During the Able Flight awards, a special programme for disabled pilots in the USA that we attended, the world famous Tuskegee  Airmen representative spotted the smile and attentiveness of this young african aviator with a desire to share health education to her people, and chased after her to present a Tuskegee Airmen (famous for the Red Tails in WWII) T shirt.  These pilots struggled against the odds, and we shared the commonalities of challenge in developmental aviation and the development of the 'red tails'.




To top it all off, in this week of being amazed at what aviation can do in so many realms, we all met with Karlene Petit, author of the novel 'Flight for Control', which has a passing mention of MoM in the story line.  That and some great interviews with AOPA and the EAA, left us all exhausted.

One thing that became clear to all of us on this trip is that 'raising awareness' is more important than we ever realised.  If we missed you, we are sorry. If we met for the first time, it was a pleasure to get to know you.  If we met up again, we were happy to enjoy the 'family reunion'.  All of you are special, and we look forward to welcoming you to Kpong Airfeld, receiving a mail from you, or simply knowing that you are out there, reading about us, and supporting us quietly as we strive to change 'Lives, one flight at a time....'

On behalf of the whole team, THANK YOU!