Flobes

Enoch has had loose stools for the past few months.

He seems uncomfortable after meals.  We have given him various kinds of medications for worms and other creepy-crawlies.  We are currently trying to see whether it may be some food allergy - all milk and wheat-based foods off for the last 10 days (a muffin made it into his mouth by mistake a few days ago).  Some improvement, but not much.

So day-before-yesterday we went to see Dr. Stephen Alfred at Bethany.  He talked to Enoch, prodded him a bit, said that he could feel a node in his neck, and asked stool tests for three consecutive days and for an ultrasound of Enoch's abdomen.

I took Enoch for the ultrasound later in the day.  Enoch asked if it would hurt.  I assured him it would not.  He asked the  radiographer the same question.

While the ultrasound was being done Enoch watched me. 

The Dr. told me that she had seen some nodes but that they were not a problem.


Enoch had told Sheba that he did not want to go to school.  When Sheba asked him why, he told her that he had heard that he had 'flobes' - he wanted to know what 'flobes' were.  Sheba assured him that we all have 'flobes.'  He went to school happily enough.

We deal with a lot of death and sick people   Enoch knows people who he saw and are now dead.  Its hardly surprising that he was scared.

I picked up the report this morning and brought it to Sheba.  Sure enough - there was mention of 'few right iliac non necrotic mesenteric nodes are seen - the largest measuring 7x11 mm'

Now it was our turn to wonder about 'flobes.'  In our minds we ran through the times Enoch has been to our JSK centre - where so many have TB.  We remembered how some of the kids of the doctors at the hospital Sheba trained at had gotten TB.  But Enoch's appetite is not only healthy - it is almost ravenous these days.  No fever too.   The other alternative?  Some kind of a cancer....  We never want to think of things like this, but there they are.  Would we have to do further investigations?  A biopsy perhaps? 

The kids were at a music practice so we went over to see Dr. Stephen.  He looked at the report and assured us with a quiet chuckle that nodes are found in allmost all children.  Appetite?  Super.  No need to worry.  Stephen wrote a set of medications that would shock and awe any heleminth or bacteria in sight and send us on our way rejoicing.

What would we have done if Stephen had looked at us gravely and said that he would like to have a biopsy from Enoch?  To be honest, we had already half-prepared ourself for such an eventuality.  It didn't seem possible, and in the end it wasn't, but then whenever something feared takes place we don't believe its actually happening when the crash and the bang are taking place around us.  We did leave the home having said a prayer in which we gave Enoch back to the Lord.  And he has given Enoch back to us.

Medical technology is wonderful.  The stuff we can now do to look into the body is amazing.  But sometimes the things that it throws up can also give you the willies!  At the end of the day - it is Enoch's robust appetite that has swung the pendulum back to what we consider normal - to have a delightful young man who is closing in on his 10th birthday in mid-Feb.   Are we ever grateful for the common grace of having this wonderful lad!

Onwards!  Flobes or no flobes!