What is fifty years of suffering worth? Forget about the millions of gallons of toxic Agent Orange herbicide and the tons of explosives dropped on Vietnam, a tiny country once considered by the World Bank to be one of the poorest in the world. Forget about the millions of Vietnamese people killed in what Vietnamese call "The American War." Here is the result of one careless and malicious kick by an American soldier fifty years ago:
This is what results from 50 years of
walking with a ruptured medial collateral ligament in your left knee--gross deformity
of one's body plus excruciating pain in the opposite knee and the arms that are
trying to compensate for the load that the injured leg cannot bear. This poor woman, who is now in her eighties,
has dragged herself around for fifty years like this. She used to walk with crutches, but had to
give them up as she kept falling down.
Most recently, she walked supporting much of her weight with her hands
pressing down on a plastic stool. When
even that was becoming impossible due to the worsening arthritis in her "good"
knee and in her arms, she came to the Traditional Medicine Hospital of Da Nang
in a desperate quest for help. At this
point, her entire body appeared twisted from the decades of maladaptive
ambulation to which she had been reduced. There was no quick fix available for her.
And
so we did two things: first we assigned
Vu, a young Vietnamese therapist who had recently completed a course in
Myofascial Release therapy conducted by Joni and Roger Edmonds at our hospital,
to help stretch out her tortured body so that she could sit and stand erect.
Then we asked Mr. Anh, a local orthotic
technician, to fabricate a custom brace for her that would stabilize her
injured knee so that she could bear weight upon it.
And now, Vu and Hien, two of the young
therapists that I have been training for the past two years, are working with
this elderly woman in order to help her regain her ability to walk on two feet, with the support of
her new brace and a walking frame.
What was the cost to Steady Footsteps, our
organization? One hundred US dollars for
the custom brace and the sandals to go with it.
That works out to two dollars a year for fifty years of suffering. There's a message in there, somewhere.