Spacers

In the States, patients who use inhalers are supposed to use them with spacers (a chamber that you attach to the inhaler to ensure that the medicine gets to your lungs, not just the back of your throat). In Lesotho, they do not have commercially made spacers, but that doesn’t mean that their use isn’t important. So instead, patients have to make them out of water bottles or plastic cups. One day, I worked with a wonderful translator. Beyond interpreting, he would help me understand when my recommendations or suggestions were impossible in this setting with these resources (which was really helpful). He also made spacers, of his own volition, for each asthmatic that we treated. He understood the importance, and knew that these homemade ones probably didn’t last from one appointment to the next, so he took it upon himself to send kids home with one.