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| <- back to main Zhou Lin Gets Ready for First Steps August 12, 2006Brecken Swartz |
 Zhou Lin is making great progress toward her goal of walking by the
end of this year. She is finally able to stand completely upright on
the "tilt table" she uses in physical therapy, and just this week she
has been able to try holding her own weight up on parallel
bars. Beth, Zhou Lin's physical therapist, and all the rest of her
wonderful nurses at Shriners are keeping a close eye on the health of
the fragile skin on Zhou Lin's feet, and although there are some tiny
areas of tearing from the pressure of standing and wearing the tight
compression socks she needs to keep her foot stumps in the proper
shape, all is apparently going rather well. Zhou Lin has an
appointment in a couple of days to be fitted for her prosthetics at
the Shriners Orthopedic Hospital in Springfield.
In the meantime, stay tuned for Zhou Lin's artwork to appear on the HandReach website within the next few days! |
In the meantime, Zhou Lin is keeping quite busy. She and her mom are
having a great time these days doing crafts -- stringing beads,
experimenting with different art materials, even knitting. (Zhou
Lin's mother has already knitted several items of clothing for her
baby son to wear this winter.)
Also, a Chinese friend from DC donated Zhou Lin a used laptop, which Zhou Lin is now slowly starting
to learn to use on her own. The computer is the one thing that has
made her wish to have use of her fingers again, so that she can type
more freely on the keyboard. Although the surgery on her hands may
not happen this year, Zhou Lin is definitely learning to do what she
can, and once she can sit up straight again (after the surgery on her
perineum heals fully), she should be able to start experimenting with
some English-learning software donated by another Chinese friend from
Maryland. Zhou Lin's English is still really coming along, and she
is starting to get into multisyllabic words now. Her first activity
on the computer was to learn to play Free Cell with one of her nurses.
We are about a week away now from Zhou Lin's big art auction, to be
held in Cambridge on Sunday, August 20th, from 2-4pm. Empire Photo,
a very nice local framing company here in Boston run by Sinasi Birgun
and his family (from Turkey) provided dry mounting and framing that
really sets off the beauty of Zhou Lin's paintings. People have
already been stopping by to see Zhou Lin's artwork, and we will soon
be providing photos of each painting on the 
Our search is now under way for doctors in China who will be willing
to work with us on getting Zhou Lin the follow-up care she needs this
year as she starts out on her prosthetics, both in Beijing and in her
hometown in Sichuan. Some Chinese researchers at Shriners in Boston
are coming forward with recommendations, and the goal of setting up a
pediatric burn unit in Beijing in the short term seems feasible. But
we will need a lot more funding to start to make this level of care
available to poor families with no money, which is Zhou Lin's dream.
Although Zhou Lin is healing well now from her foot amputation and
the surgery on her perineum, she still needs at least one more
surgery (on the anterior region around her pelvis), and she will need
a lot of monitoring as she starts out on her prosthetics because of
the fragility of her bones and skin. The plan now is for Zhou Lin
and her mother to stay in Boston through the end of September,
although Xu Lan and I will need to take off for China at the end of
August to begin our teaching jobs in Beijing and Sichuan. As long as
Zhou Lin's condition can be safely stabilized before she leaves
Boston, she should be able to return to China for most of the year
before she needs to come back to Shriners again next summer to
continue the rest of her surgical reconstructive treatment. We will
have another team meeting next week to pin down the upcoming dates.