As Schneily steps forward, his father can't help but look back
- Friday, May 14, 2010
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DESCHAPELLES, Haiti -- Schneily Similien doesn't want to wait a minute longer.
The 4-year-old Haitian boy who lost his left leg in the earthquake has just arrived for another visit at the clinic where he knows that today he's supposed to get an artificial limb.
He sees more than a dozen grown-up amputees wearing their legs, and, like any preschooler, he wants one, too.
"Papa! Papa! Go get my leg for me," he calls out in Haitian Creole. "Papa, get my foot so I can walk."
Schneily's father, Ducarmel Similien, also spelled Cimilien, is as anxious as anyone to see this new contraption, the device that's supposed to make his son whole again.
Still, he urges the rambunctious boy to be patient -- and brave.
"We're waiting, we're waiting," he says to his son. "Remember, don't cry when they put it on."
There seems to be little chance of that when prosthetics expert Jay Tew shows up a few minutes later with the leg. Tew is the manager of the newly launched Hanger Orthopedic Group clinic at Hopital Albert Schweitzer and Schneily is, so far, the youngest of some 85 patients.
The boy opens his eyes wide and giggles at the sight of the leg before hopping quickly on his crutches into the fitting room. He smiles as Tew powders his residual limb, a smooth stump of dark skin.
Tew slides a sock on the boy's limb, then a liner, then the leg. Over that he smoothes a sleeve that will hold the limb on Schneily's body.
Finally, it's time to walk.
Schneily slides off the bench where he's sitting and steps gingerly onto the floor. The leg is a little short, Tew says, and they'll need to adjust it later.
Schneily will need new shoes, too, two of them, for proper fitting, and he gives someone, anyone, money to rush to the nearby market to find a pair of size 6 children's sneakers.
Meanwhile, Schneily takes one step, then two, and then looks anxiously toward his dad. The smile is gone. His left knee buckles a bit.
"Stand up tall, up tall," Tew urges in English, frustrated once again that he doesn't speak Creole.
As Tew holds him, Schneily takes a few more hard, wobbly steps away from the bench, then back before Tew sits him down.
"Yay!" Tew cheers, slapping Schneily's hand. "High five!"
A few feet away, Ducarmel watches the process intently until Schneily is done. Then, the 40-year-old carpenter, a man who has trekked across hundreds of miles in post-quake Haiti to get help for this child, walks over to the corner of the room, bows his head against the cinder block wall -- and cries.
The leg is fine, he tells a translator, but it's also a jarring reminder that even with the device, an already hard life in Haiti will be even harder for his youngest son.
"I wish I could reverse the universe," Ducarmel tells the translator as he wipes his eyes. "I wish it never happened at all."
Tew walks over to comfort Ducarmel, to tell him that the first fitting is often much harder on the parent than the child.
"He is going to do great," Tew says through an interpreter.
Within minutes, someone calls out that they have the shoes, a pair of used Buzz Lightyear sneakers that light up with every step. It's not clear whether Schneily recognizes the popular character from the children's movie "Toy Story," but he eagerly dons the new shoes.
With Tew's help, Schneily steps out into the courtyard to practice with his crutches and his leg, moving cautiously on the rocky ground. He seems perplexed by the leg and by Tew's instructions to walk heel-to-toe, the best way to mimic a natural step.
After a few tries, he starts to get the hang of it. The limb doesn't hurt him, he says. That's a good sign, although as he puts more weight on his residual limb, it could become very tender. All amputees have to be careful to avoid pressure points that cause skin breakdown and sores, which can lead to infection.
It'll take practice and time for his body to adjust, but Tew predicts that Schneily will be running within the week.
As the child grows, Tew promises that the clinic will be in place to lengthen the shank of his prosthetic limb or even to replace it every year or so. The goal of the project is to train Haitian physical therapists and technicians to help the region's amputees now and in the future.
"Infinity and beyond," Tew says, quoting Buzz Lightyear's famous catchphrase. "That's our slogan now."
Video Library: New Amputees - Prosthesis Help Needed
Video Library: New Amputees - Prosthesis Help Needed
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