Starting again….

It is several years since I have been involved in my Heatedstew blog. There have been good reasons for that. It was necessary to sell our farm and purchase and move into a suburb. Not surprisingly I’m getting older and there have been a number of health problems. I think that I am getting back onto more level ground. So here goes again!

A few months ago our house was tingling with excitement, and with very good reason. A young man was arriving from America, He’s very short having had both legs cut off when he was run over by a train. He is not one eyed but one armed, and he’s making a great success of his life! My wife and I had hoped to adopt him but our government refused. He was adopted into America where he lives and goes to University. He was on an American wheelchair rugby paralympic team in 2016 but now majors in wheelchair basketball.

There are some excellent Ethiopian surgeons, a rare one is not! Accordinging to the boy when he woke after the accident (he was run over by a train when he was doing something maybe considered necessary to survive but stupid and dangerous) he still had both knees and several fingers. His amputations are just below his hips and his elbow. Length is very important for making prostheses work, but I assume that as a poor countryside kid they were looking to make him a successful beggar. This surgeon was in the ‘bad’ group!

When I met him he was still in hospital after his initial surgery. I was told that he was due for discharge back onto the street where he had been living. I immediately asked permission to take him home with me. His amputations were not well done and on his left stump the bone end had not been smoothed and the spicules of the non-well rounded bone end, not covered with muscle were sticking into the skin and he was in agony with every slight movement. As he was not living with his family – his dad was dead and his mother ill – he had been a street kid and there was trouble getting permission to take him home with me.

He at that stage knew no English. But in my very average knowledge of Amharic we got on ok. ‘Do you have to pee at night?’ I asked as if the answer was ‘yes’ I’d have to get up and carry him. ‘No’ he said. ‘Good’ I thought! ‘Do you wake up with horrible nightmares?’ I asked. His reply absolutely staggered me. ‘There is a God in heaven and I’ve put myself into His hands.’ he said.

The weather was drizzly and as we came near Addis the mud thrown up by other vehicles made it necessary to use the windscreen wipers and washers. He had as far as I know never been in a car before, although he was pretty streetwise. When the water was squirted onto the window he asked me where that came from? I said ‘There are two little boys under the hood and I give them a shock and they pee for me.’ A horrified gasp, followed by a healthy laugh ‘Now tell me the truth.’ I knew then that we would get on!

He had several trips into hospital in Addis to have his amputations made more appropriate. He stayed with my wife in Ethiopia for a year while she taught. I was diagnosed with cancer and had to come back to Australia for surgery. Then I returned to Ethiopia and we three made arrangements for a medical visa for him to come here for prostheses but the Australian Government wouldn’t allow us to adopt him. We still consider him as a ‘son’.

Dominic Cartier (maybe more later)