My time in Can Tho always reminds me to actively exercise gratitude. It makes the small things we take for granted every day — clean water, reliable food, two working feet — feel so much more important to be grateful for.
Although we cannot treat everyone, and some people have conditions we cannot repair, being part of an effort to give people a life-changing opportunity to walk without pain or deformity is an indescribable feeling.
It's the small moments from this trip that will continue to inform me on how to think, how to act, and how to give back in my life. Just a few hours of our team's time can inspire and create a lifetime of change in someone else's. And that is what makes IEP so unique.
It also reminds me of the great work that the International Extremity Project does. Another patient coming into the screening room is a chance for us to help change somebody's life. The look on their faces when we tell them they are eligible for surgery says it all. Whether they are a 40-year-old man or a 6-year-old girl, our patients will forever compartmentalize their lives as before-IEP and after-IEP. In other words, before I could walk and after I could walk.
Noah Gould
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