Koko was a bit perplexed by my questioning whether or not the little boy was the right one; but I explained to her that he looked so drastically different in his little photo, I couldn’t tell.  She assured me that he was the right boy and I watched as the physician stood him atop her desk and began to undress him for an examination.  Pa and I were at the ready to take pictures of the little guy so that we could e-mail them to our pediatric adoption specialist back home.  We took notes as the physician pointed to his distended tummy—a sign that he had rickets.  We had known that ahead of that and weren’t too concerned since it was a Vitamin D deficiency that could easily be remedied with milk and sunlight and liquid vitamins.  Klas explained to us that none of the children went outside during the winter months—primarily because there were never enough warm clothes for each child to wear.  Additionally, milk, sadly, was not a staple in orphanages, and kids were prone to rickets which, if left untreated, could lead to bone diseases such as hip dysplasia.  But because this little guy was so young, he didn’t show signs of hip dysplasia, thankfully, and despite the physician’s various poking and prodding; he seemed quite content with the attention and the cookie still in his hand.

The physician told us that he was relatively healthy, but we were concerned when we were told that he had been in the hospital for 21 days.   She explained to us that he had initially suffered from bronchitis but because he shared a room with two children with a case of chicken pox, they decided it would be best to expose him to get it over with. Pa sided up to me and whispered that it might have been better that he had been in the hospital for that long because it was possible he might have been better fed and maybe received more attention.  But all I needed to do was look at the little guy with his sunny disposition and I knew he was fine.

The little boy was very small for his age—and he looked even smaller when the nurse put his clothes back on.  The head teacher had brought him a little one-piece clown outfit that he positively swam in.  His height was about 22 inches and his weight was 19 pounds.  I had known six month old infants who were taller and weighed more, and it was sad that he had just turned 19 months old the day before.  He had a lot of catching up to do.  But his head circumference—something our pediatrician recommended we measure as one indicator of fetal alcohol syndrome–was right on par with a child his age.

Once he was fully dressed, the nurse took him down from the desk so that he could walk.  He did a good job holding himself up and holding on to the desk to keep himself upright, but he took only a few, apprehensive steps on his own.   He was much more interested in playing with a little toy on the desk, so he plunked himself down and held the toy in one hand and the half-eaten cookie with another.

Koko asked the physician how much longer the little boy needed to stay in the hospital.  They said that he was past the incubation period for the chicken pox, but thought he’d be better off staying as long as he could.  Koko asked us if we had any more questions and told us that the physician welcomed us back whenever we wanted to visit him.  We smiled and said we’d be back the next day.  Koko also arranged, on our behalf, blood tests for the little guy so he could be tested for HIV and Hepatitis. 

Meanwhile, after we sent our photos and general observations to our pediatrician back home, she called us that next day, at 6:00 a.m. her time and told us that he looked great.  Any ailments he had could be easily remedied.  She congratulated us and told us what we already knew: we found our son.

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