Day 11: Follow-up

Some of the team was anxious to get started today, so Emory and Riley ran a workout session with Scott and Emily joining them. They got out on the roof at 5:45 and met with the rest of the team for breakfast about an hour later. This morning, Scott and Scott Sr. met with Hope Haven to better outline and define the relationship between Stand With Me and Hope Haven, streamlining the sharing of resources and materials between organizations. The rest of the team worked on finding and applying for grants. We contacted several other organizations involved in funding medical non-profits like Stand With Me. Intermittently, we worked on creating modifications to the stander and the template we’re currently using in order to make our construction process even more efficient.

Around two o’clock this afternoon, we visited two patients’ homes to follow up with our standers. Our first visit was to Darline, Stand With Me’s first recipient of a standing frame in Guatemala. She demonstrated incredible progress, obliterating her original prognosis. Two years ago, no physical therapist who saw her believed she’d ever be able to walk. Today, she was able to walk with barely any help. She’s been able to help her mother around the house, as she can stand on her own with minimal support. She improved from a 5 on the Gross Motor Function Classification System to a 3! The picture below describes each level of the GMFCS. Her therapy has been a huge success, and we think she’ll be able to make great use of a walker to further improve her mobility. Our second visit was to José. We were checking up on him to make sure he was on track with the therapy he required before beginning to use our stander, and he should be able to start this Thursday! We're excited to hear back from José and his family to learn about his progress.

After some late-night preparation, we turned in to rest before our day of travel tomorrow. We'll be in Chiquimula until Friday evening, visiting patients and families.