from HOMe to HOME: part Three [of Five]

visiting FOCOS & Christabel's FOCOS story!

We had passed the road to FOCOS on our way to the village. So we headed south and turned down a red dirt road. We had only seen pictures of FOCOS so we were surprised when we seemed to be heading out into the middle of nowhere. This is a world class facility. We assumed that it would be in a more "built up" area...but because this is Africa [TIA] it was way down a red dirt road, which became a paved road back in the middle of nowhere & then all of the sudden there is was.

We were directed to park outside of the complex and enter through a small gate. We were greeted by a security guard [who was pert near 7 ft tall] and a nurse. We had to go through an Ebola screening before we could enter the complex [the only Ebola screening we encountered during our trip]. We all passed & we were escorted to the building where we could request medical records.

Now for a recap of Christabel's FOCOS story. Back in May of 2013 an MRI diagnosed Christabel with Menigomyelocoele, which is a form of Spina Bifida. FOCOS [Foundation of Orthopedic and Complex Spine] is an AMAZING organization that exsists to help children [and adults] just like Christabel. They agreed to perform Christabel's surgery and quoted a price of $5000. WAMM, the organization that runs HOMe, agreed to move forward with the surgery as soon as the funds were raised. It took less than 6 months for all the money to come in and on November 12 surgery day arrived!

A friend of our family was able to travel to Ghana to be with Christabel during her hospital stay. It was a huge blessing, as we got daily updates, a few phone calls [we were able to hear to sweet, sweet voice] and LOTS of videos!!

Audrey with Christabel @ FOCOS

The surgery was successful and Christabel recovered quickly. There is truely nothing that will keep this little girl down. She has no idea that she has a disability! She remained at FOCOS for 2 weeks before she happily returned to her family at HOMe. She returned to FOCOS a few times over the next few months for follow up visits, but had no complications arise after the surgery and was discharged from there care with a "clean bill of health"[at least in regard to her spine]!

So...we were pretty excited to get to see the facility that took such great care of our sweet girl! We walked into the lobby and up to the reception desk. We explained why we had come and we were greeted with "Yes, we remember Christabel!" They all talked to her & asked how she was doing. She was extremely shy [we think she remembered being there & may have been concerned that something unpleasant might be coming her way]. We requested the medical records from her surgery so that we could bring them back to the US with us for her doctors & specialist here. Unfortunately they were unable to accomplish this for us because we were told there was not a doctor there to sign the report. [I was somewhat confused as to why the report from 14 months ago was not signed yet...but TIA!!] They said they could email them to us so, while our visit did not accomplish the intended goal, we were glad to have been able to see this amazing facility.

We were asked to NOT take any photos due to HIPAA. So the pictures below are from the FOCOS website

computer generated photo of the complex...but not an
accurate depiction of the surrounding area :]

We loaded up to head off to HOMe for the goodbyes. I am going to go out of order a little bit here because we ended up headed back to FOCOS on Friday morning because our rock star social worker, Esther, was able to work it out so we could get the medical records while we were in Ghana. This time we were able to forego the screening & we were met at the door and escorted into an air conditioned room where we met one of the doctors & were asked to wait while they got all the documents ready for us. There happened to be a nurse in this area stocking supplies. He also recognized Christabel and asked "how is the wound on her bottom healing?" It just so happened that he was one of her nurses when she was there for her surgery back in November of 2013! He said he still had photos of her on his phone :]

In the end we were handed a small envelope that could in no way contain all the medical records we were hoping for. But we had already waited so long...and clearly they did not understand what we were looking for when we asked for medical records...so we just thanked them for all they had done and figured if her doctors in the states need anything further they can request it when the need arises!

Tomorrow...part Four: goodbye HOMe hello HOME!!!