Ever since I was a small boy in the Philippines, I wanted to go to the USA, especially to California.
Even when we would be out in the basak planting rice, I would pass the time by daydreaming about the day I would finally go there....it would be my dream come true!
Planting rice in Surigao del Norte, 1961, age 10.
May 3, 2005: Imagine my excitement upon finally landing at San Francisco International Airport in CALIFORNIA!
Everything is BIGGER and BETTER in America!
First I went to visit my mom in Brentwood, near Stockton in California's Central Valley.
She has become a "birdlady" with a house full of birds. This is a previously wild pigeon with a lame leg...adopted by my mom from the shelter.
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Next day we took the pigeon to a avian veterinary clinic... specializing in birds. Dr. Ford had taken x-rays of its legs last week, but couldn't find anything significant. So today he took more x-rays, this time with the pigeon strapped down and with its left leg externally rotated so as to get a lateral view of the tibia and knee joint..
Bingo! He found a very sharp bend at the end of the tibia, although it was difficult to tell if the bone had actually fused in that abnormal alignment.
So......he offered to do a de-rotational osteotomy with external fixation: drill small holes in the pigeon's distal tibia near the sharp bend, enough so he could break the bone (de-rotational osteotomy.) Then he would use the small holes to place pins in the bone; then put the bones in proper alignment, and attach the pins to plates on the outside of the leg (external fixation.) These would be left in place until the bone had healed. "Come back on Friday for the surgery!"
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Due to a heavy schedule at the avian clinic, the surgery was re-scheduled for the folowing week, after I would be gone from California. So I didn't get to watch.
I did get to see some of what's going on in the area around Brentwood: lots and lots and lots of new construction...
Here's how it's done: buy a piece of land, cut down the orchard, and put in a new street.....
Bring in the lumber and put the carpenters to work...
Pretty soon you have a row of California Mansions...
Slap up a sign, and a guardhouse to keep out the riff-raff....
...and you got a little piece of the American dream!
On to Washington State!
Main page of Chris In the USA Again
