Pins and Needles

Paging Dr. House: what's wrong with this man's elbow?

If you guessed, "an Afghan citizen injured in a vehicle accident in Iran 18 months ago, who now cannot afford to pay the bribe to the hospital in Kabul, and traveled 4 hours by bus to come to the Ghazni clinic" you are exactly right! 

This unfortunate man had left the country to find work in Iran, got injured, had pins and wires placed in his arm, and was sent back to Afghanistan.   He was hoping we could take out the hardware, because it gives him a painful (appropiately named in this case) "pins-and-needles" sensation and occasionally pokes through his skin. 

(medical types who can't help poring over the X-ray will note persistent non-union of the olecrenon, and lucencies around the wire and pin suggestive of infection)

Unfortunately, we can't do the surgery here because we don't have the right equipment.  But we were able to refer him to a South Korean hospital in Bagram that does charitable cases like these.

Today I also gave some of the clothes you all sent to an 8 year old boy whose thumb was blown off by a land mine.  This is not uncommon, as Afghanistan has the most land mines per square mile of any country in the world.  We took him to the operating room to clean up the rest of his hand, and since his clothes were totally bloody, I got him a sweatshirt and pants for his trip to Kabul, the capitol, to get further care.

  We also gave out dozens of winter clothes for men, women, and kids, and handed out many more toothbrushes and toothpaste.