The last few weeks since the passing of our dear friend Carlos Gomez have been hard. The hundreds of Children of the Americas board members and volunteers who knew Carlos memorialized him and said good-bye to him in their own personal way, but the sadness lingers.
So it felt particularly poignant and uplifting, to see the headlines in Guatemala's main newspaper, the Prense Libre. (Link below)
Newspaper article
Douglas, the young man in the article below, was one of our COTA patients in January. Born with an arm and a leg that never functioned properly meant that Douglas either had to be carried or transported via wheelchair wherever he went in Guatemala. When we saw him in our clinic, he was mentally and physically tired of his mobility limitations. He made the brave and challenging decision to have his useless leg amputated.
Amputations in Guatemala are not to be taken lightly. We have had many patients over the years refuse a limb removal because the cost and availability of prosthetics are so difficult. At such a young age, Douglas knew that finding artificial limb resources might be just as difficult as his physical limitations had been.But the stars
lined up for him on this particular trip.
We had an experienced orthopedic surgeon with us (Dr. George Quill), and the perfect COTA volunteer who had just the right expertise in post-operative mobility training for pediatric patients (Shelley Ryan), who just happened to bring the perfect donated walker (left) with her from the U.S. that practically had his name on it and couldn't have been better suited for him if it had been made for Douglas personally.
The hard work of helping an amputation patient become mobile starts after COTA leaves our annual surgical teams in Guatemala. This miracle for Douglas could not have been pulled together without the expertise of Julio Cesar Fuentes Estrada, who volunteers his expertise in fitting, fabricating and repairing prosthetics for our patients.
Children of the Americas is thrilled to see Julio get the credit he deserves for helping this young man, and so many others over the years.
So it felt particularly poignant and uplifting, to see the headlines in Guatemala's main newspaper, the Prense Libre. (Link below)
Newspaper article
Douglas, the young man in the article below, was one of our COTA patients in January. Born with an arm and a leg that never functioned properly meant that Douglas either had to be carried or transported via wheelchair wherever he went in Guatemala. When we saw him in our clinic, he was mentally and physically tired of his mobility limitations. He made the brave and challenging decision to have his useless leg amputated.
Amputations in Guatemala are not to be taken lightly. We have had many patients over the years refuse a limb removal because the cost and availability of prosthetics are so difficult. At such a young age, Douglas knew that finding artificial limb resources might be just as difficult as his physical limitations had been.But the stars
lined up for him on this particular trip.
 |
| Post-amputation |
We had an experienced orthopedic surgeon with us (Dr. George Quill), and the perfect COTA volunteer who had just the right expertise in post-operative mobility training for pediatric patients (Shelley Ryan), who just happened to bring the perfect donated walker (left) with her from the U.S. that practically had his name on it and couldn't have been better suited for him if it had been made for Douglas personally.
 |
| After receiving donated prosthetic leg |
The hard work of helping an amputation patient become mobile starts after COTA leaves our annual surgical teams in Guatemala. This miracle for Douglas could not have been pulled together without the expertise of Julio Cesar Fuentes Estrada, who volunteers his expertise in fitting, fabricating and repairing prosthetics for our patients.
Children of the Americas is thrilled to see Julio get the credit he deserves for helping this young man, and so many others over the years.
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