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Runny Nose… Definitely Not As Cool As Running With Chimps - Joytown Day 10


Sunday evening I began to feel the unwelcome symptoms of either really bad allergies (which I never tend to have) or a cold: sore throat, itchy eyes, stuffy/runny nose, and a general "cloudy-ness". As the evening wore on I felt even worse until I finally forced myself to crawl into bed.

This morning I woke up feeling better but my nose and throat were still not cooperating. We headed to Joytown to complete what we estimated as our LAST DAY of data collection! Each of us had only two or three subjects to see and complete wheelchair skills tests with. We had our plan set out for the week as far as what needed to be accomplished with data and presentations. Everything was packed away neatly and on track. But, of course, Kenya (and research) happens...

Singing and devos went by swiftly as we were all assigned in pairs to summarize and comment on a specific chapter of Hebrews. After devos, Ms. Rispin called us four students to a mini-pow wow about something new and urgent to do with data collection. "We need to do a whole other set of data collection with a new chair from 30 people in one day" were the first words I heard. That wasn’t exactly what was said but it was the way my ready-to-be-done-with-skills-testing brain understood them. Ms. Rispin began explaining her suggestion to collect data that would compare a basic Chinese-made sling-back hospital chair (a chair that many disabled people end up getting stuck with) to the Motivation and Whrilwind chairs. My strong apprehension began to turn as I understood the value of the information for impacting the mindsets of wheelchair manufactures and wheelchair design itself. If this data showed that the Motivation and Whirlwind, which are specially designed for rougher ground, performed no better than the cheap Chinese chair, then a serious re-design would need to be considered by those companies. We all agreed that tomorrow we would go for it and collect the extra data.

My sights for Monday, however, were still set on completing the original skills tests with my two remaining subjects. Luckly, I knew they were easy subjects to work with, one of them being Mr. Engineer  (John). We had some miscommunication and delays in finding John but eventually I had him linked up with a heart rate monitor and completing skills tests. My pockets were quickly filling up with tissues as I sniffled my way through giving instructions and asking my subjects for comments about the wheelchairs.  By lunchtime I had finally FINISHED my wheelchairs skills runs and decided to ask about catching a ride back "home" to sleep off some of my suspected-cold.

Three glorious solid hours of sleep later, I woke up to Anna's soft voice asking if I would be coming down to dinner.

So far this evening I feel immensely better in the cloudy-head department but still frustrated with a runny/stuffy nose. I would love some prayer for rest and total healing overnight so that I can be ready for an all-hands-on-deck kind of day tomorrow.

Also, I've discovered that feeling sickly when you're halfway around the world from your mother and the international phone decides not to work is really a bummer...

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