Parts of Rose Monsillac's body seem locked into place, even though she's not paralyzed.
On January 12th, the earth convulsed beneath her and her neighbors homes in Carrefour, Haiti, burying her beneath both. Her leg and finger were crushed, her head gashed open, and she anguished in the hospital hallway for five days before it was her turn to see the doctor.
Now Monsillac, 56, lives inside a tent in the Adventist Hospital's front yard, her muscles rock-hard from being cot-ridden for six months with an external fixator bolted to her leg in three places. More perplexing, her right ring finger has become the source of constant pain even though it no longer exists. It was amputated a week after the earthquake.
Her other four fingers operate perfectly, but to her brain, the missing one seems stuck open, rendering her entire hand useless.
Dr. Altschuler flew into Haiti on Monday with the group Unified for Global Healing, towing 200 one-pound mirrors that cost $16 each, to demonstrate how the low-tech equipment could be used to relieve what’s known as “phantom limb pain."
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