hot-pink, ruby-red, cast shoes

I remember seeing him those first few days after his surgery sitting on a small chair with his two little legs and bandaged feet tucked up on the corner of the chair. In reality, I don’t know if he actually understood that he wasn’t allowed to walk or if the pain in his toes and feet kept him from attempting to walk, but there he sat.


Both of his feet had been burned when he was small. One moment he was playing, the next moment his precious chocolate colored skin connected with a boiling liquid and all the skin on his toes burned. He didn’t have the luxury of medical care and over time his burned skin contracted. His toes fused together then folded completely down and under.


The time came for him to start walking, but it was difficult. He attempted to waddle around and eventually learned to mobilize by walking on the sides of his feet. Shoes wouldn’t fit correctly and he didn’t even have individual toes to mangle into a flip-flop so at least the sides of his feet could be protected from constant contact with the hard African soil.


The tiny skin grafts we put between his toes started to heal and the doctor said he could start to walk. My little patient with bandaged toes and feet timidly clung to the wall contemplating if he actually wanted to walk or not. The physical therapist and I encouraged him saying, “Walka- Walka, you can do it, Walka- Walka” which is the Krio way of saying “Walk.” He glanced over his shoulder looking for approval and confidence from his mama. His tall, beautiful, African mother lovingly nodded her head, persuading her son to take his first steps on his new feet and toes. He stumbled, but we encouraged him to keep walking. We held both his hands in ours and encouraged him to walk. The bandages on his feet made him easily loose traction and he sometimes slipped around like he was on and ice-skating rink. I couldn’t help but laugh as he slipped around on the floor in his little hospital gown and bandaged feet. But, each time he fell down we picked him up and encouraged him to keep walking.


Weeks and multiple bandage changes later, one of my co-workers questioned if it was time for our little patient to try wearing a pair of shoes. I called the PT/OT team and told them about our idea. I got sidetracked and involved in other patient care and missed the PT/OT visit, but all I know is one minute my little patient was stumbling around the ward with his little bandaged feet and then almost instantaneously he was running down the hall-way and in and out of the ship stairwells. I could barely keep up with him. My patient had received a brand new pair of tiny, hot-pink, cast shoes- that look like a snazzy pair of orthotic Velcro high-tops. And it was seriously like magic, as soon as he put on the hot-pink shoes, he was in another world, he was free! He ran, jumped, skipped, and rarely slipped. It was like he had found his own pair of Dorothy’s ruby red slippers, clicked his heels together, and was whisked off to another land.


The little cast shoes he put on were not magical, nor ruby-red. On the contrary they were hot-pink, but it was awesome to witness my little patient getting whisked off to another land. Not a magical land called Oz, but the land of healing…and I am so honored that I can witness this healing every day in the place I call my home…there’s no place like home…there’s no place like home….there’s no place like home…

Thanks father in heaven, that because you live in my heart, I can make a home wherever I am. Thanks for my little patient in his hot-pink, ruby- red, cast shoes and that he found healing in my home/your home here on the Mercy Ship.