Ukraine Wrap Up “The war is always in the recesses of our mind, yet we live as normal as possible. If we cry, Russia wins.” Repeating themes we were told: We are stronger and more united than ever before in our history. We have been growing economically and we work to continue that growth. We go [...]
Doctors and their Bags This second trip to Ukraine as a Medical supply courier reinforced the importance of these supplies to the work that these orthopedic trauma surgeons are doing. We are moved by how humble and dedicated these doctors are. Per Dr. Rhikter, “We had to learn how to treat this new type of war [...]
Extraordinary ways people are helping people Imagine having severe physical disabilities and because of the invasion you are making the decision to leave family and country with the likelihood you may never see them again. Crossing the border from Poland into Ukraine we met Lucas (lives in Poland near German border), Paulina (Ukrainian living in Poland) [...]
UKRAINE CONFLICT This morning I was on my own in Lviv, a large urban city in the Ukraine. It feels no different like being in a city center like San Francisco, Budapest, Vienna, Hamburg, etc. I’m thankful we have a place to stay in the city center as it is so easy to be just another [...]
UKRAINE CONFILCT Reflections on walking through a cemetery of fresh graves of Ukrainian soldiers.We did not start out looking for this place. Had we known we were going to come across it, we might have shied away. We just walked around a corner and there it was - we were shocked, yet drawn in. A mixture [...]
UKRAINE CONFILCT Spent the day visiting patients. Many are far from families. We brought oranges and chocolate, massaged some hands and toes. We joked and chatted through a translator and hope we eased some of the pain or at least provided a distraction. Some were clearly in a lot of discomfort. Pain is treated with ibuprofen. [...]
UKRAINE CONFILCT Today we met the war. We drove to Zytomyr to deliver ortho supplies to a clinic. On the two hour drive we passed bombed out buildings, houses, bridges. In the town we saw the school, apartment buildings, houses and hospital that were hit by missiles.The hospital that is still standing has many complex patients, [...]
UKRAINE CONFILCT The Protez Prosthetic Center is a joint project with two brothers, both Ukrainian, one living in Minnesota, the other here in Mukachevo. There are over 15,000 amputees and they need prosthetic limbs to heal. This organization has brought over 30 patients to the USA for complex prosthetics . There are over 750 on the [...]
UKRAINE CONFILCT Our team is now in Mukachevo, western Ukraine. Our many bags of trauma supplies have been loaded into a van and are on the way to the front lines in Bekhmut where there are raging battles with many injuries of Ukrainians and Russians.We have delivered critical orthopedic equipment to a trauma surgeon here. He [...]
UKRAINE CONFILCT Today our Ukrainian driver picked us up in Budapest, Hungary and we drove to Mukachevo, Ukraine. Crossing the border took a while as we had 17 bags of medical supplies packed to the max.They were filled with trauma supplies including 100 tourniquets, medications and limb-saving orthopedic supplies. The Hungarian border control had us open [...]
