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January Trip Part 3

Third day in Dnipropetrovsk and today it was an early start today for a visit to the hospital in Kharkov to visit Nastya from the Odinkovka orphanage who is in getting her hip operation (as detailed in previous updates). It was also an opportunity to officially present the Blood Coagulation Equipment that we had purchased for the hospital as a thank you for taking on Nastya’s surgery.

It was a 7am rise to ensure that we beat the traffic in Dnipropetrovsk and allow us to get to Kharkov before midday. Thankfully I managed to sleep most of the journey so wasn’t as tired by the time we reached Khakov.

Upon arrival we went to see the chief surgeon on Nastya’s ward. He was a really friendly guy who spoke pretty good English. He explained how Nastya’s operation had gone and what they expected over the coming months. They were very pleased with the way the operation had gone and explained that they had managed to re-mould the hip joint on her pelvic bone. This was a bonus for them because they had originally thought it would require metal supports which would have been unsightly and painful. He explained that Nastya would be unable to walk for a few months as she undergoes extensive physiotherapy but the hospital were happy to allow her to return to a hospital in Dnipropetrovsk closer to friends whilst this was ongoing.

After he had explained about Nastya’s operation and her recuperation period, we were able to present him with the gift of the Blood Coagulation machine from Dnipro Kids. He was extremely grateful for the gift and explained to us how it would be of great help during future operations. He explained that during operations there was always the risk of blood vessels getting ruptured and this could be life threatening if it resulted in a huge loss of blood. The Coagulation machine, he explained, would allow them to stem the bleeding and make surgery much safer. Apparently the machine thickens the blood and helps seal wounds in a similar way that a small cut on ourselves will quickly seal itself. It certainly sounded like we’d gifted them a very important piece of equipment and the chief surgeon was certainly very grateful and asked us to thank everyone back in Scotland for their help.

We said our goodbye to the chief surgeon and headed down to the ward to see how the brave Nastya was holding up after her operation. As we entered the ward her eyes lit up and she pulled herself up in her bed to chat away with Ira. She has obviously built up a close bond with Ira and Natalie over the last couple of years and being so far from Dnipropetrovsk she was over the moon to get a visit. Ira sat down and had a chat with her about how she was holding up after the surgery and Nastya couldn’t contain herself with the stories of what had been going on. She was only to happy to show Ira her “battle scars” and explained to her the daily routines she was having to go through each day.

After a while her excitement died down enough for us to start handing over her Christmas gifts. As well as some chocolates and writing books from Dnipro Kids, she had also received a lovely parcel from her sponsors back here as well.

Before leaving the hospital though Ira and Natalie did a tour of all the wards and handed out chocolates to all the kids that were there (around 90 kids in total). I stayed in the ward with Nastya whilst this was going on and tried as best I could to put my limited knowledge of Russian to use and chat with Nastya. Nastya had been given a pack of coloured pencils so we spent the next few minutes with Nastya teaching me the Russian words for the various colours. She seemed to enjoy being the teacher and correcting my failings in pronunciation. During this though, Ira and Natalie had been getting questioned by the staff as they handed out the chocolates. The nurses weren’t too sure what was going on so Ira explained to them about the football supporters from Scotland who were looking after the orphans in Dnipropetrovsk. Before I knew what was happening there were about half a dozen nurses popping their heads through the door of the ward to see the “Dedya Moroz” (Father Frost, the Ukrainian equivalent of Santa) from Scotland. Nastya found the commotion quite exciting but for me (and I’ll use the Russian word for red given to me by Nastya) my face turned bright shade of “krasnee”!

We had to say goodbye to Nastya who was sad to see us go, as we were to leave, but with a long drive ahead and both the light and the weather likely to deteriorate we had no choice. A couple of photos from the car as we left the city showed how beautiful the architecture can be in Ukraine but once we hit the main road between Kharkov and Dnipropetrovsk there wasn’t much more than snow to be seen.

The return journey wasn’t totally uneventful … a flat tyre on the car halfway between Khakov and Dnipropetrovsk saw myself and driver Yura out changing a wheel, in temperatures of around -16. With the car stopped half on the inside lane and half in the snow at the side of the motorway it wasn’t the safest of places to be stranded either. It only took a few minutes to change the tyre, but in that time I lost most of the feeling in my hands and actually felt my skin bonding to the metal of the car wrench as I re-tightened the wheel nuts! I can’t even begin to imagine how people manage to work in such conditions during the Ukrainian winters.

Yours,
Steven Carr,
Dnipro Appeal Committee.
www.dniprokids.com

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