Cameron in Beijing!

Otto Bock kindly organized to have two sight seeing trips whilst we are here.  This morning was a trip to the Forbidden City in the heart of Beijing.  It was completed in 1420 and between then and 1912, 24 Emperors ruled China.  Called the Forbidden City because it was forbidden for common people to enter its walls it has an amazing history.  There are 9,999 rooms in the Forbidden City.  One Emperor had a grand total of 3600 wives not including his concubines.  How he found time to rule the country I have no idea!  We saw the screen from behind which a woman ruled the country through her son who was too young at the time.   On the way back to the hotel we did the mandatory stop at a silk factory.  Whilst we were not so excited about this it was quite interesting and nobody left empty handed!

Back to the central workshop for the afternoon shift and today was my day for a crash course in wheelchair repairs.  With no prosthetic repairs on the go and a pile of about 15 wheelchairs ready to go, I grabbed a Nigerian’s chair.  Turns out he won gold in Sydney in power lifting and was now the Nigerian coach.  Problem was his chair was a disaster.  He last had it repaired in Sydney and then in Athens at the Otto Bock stations there and how it had made it to today I have no idea.  As you pushed the chair the two wheels just rolled off leaving the frame on the ground (when I say rolled - think square wheels) one of the casters at the front was bent so badly if you did manage to keep the wheels on it would go in circles.  After completely rebuilding the chair (new wheels, bearings, axels, castor wheels and a complete rebuild to the front of the chair) the chair was like new except for the old frame.  After returning it to him his first comment was that we hadn’t changed the tyres (didn’t have size in stock) and could we beautify his chair by replacing the wheel guards!  After three of us had spent hours fixing this chair this was a bit disappointing. 

The other interesting job was a Brazilian athlete who was a below knee amputee with both arms amputated above the elbows.  The alignment of his leg was out and could not be adjusted as it was.  All we did here was set him up on a new foot and components which allowed us to shift the alignment to a more suitable position.  We did this just to show him how it should be so that he could get his Prosthetist to change it when he returned home.  What made this job amazing was how this guy put his prostheses on.  He was wearing a pelite liner that had a pull through stocking through the bottom of it to help him get his stump all the way into the liner.  This is not the easiest type of prostheses to don when you have both arms.  To watch this man (who would not take any help) don this liner with his stumps and his mouth had to seen to be believed.  Just another example of hour these athletes get on with it and get the job done regardless of their disability.  

The workshop is open until 11pm but tonight we got off an hour early – good timing the great wall will be conquered in the morning….

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