Henry was born four years ago in a very poor neighbourhood in central Lusaka called Garden.  His birth went well and his development appeared to be progressing normally, until a few months later when Henry’s mother, Linah, noticed that her newborn’s right leg was beginning to bend outward.  Linah immediately suspected that her son had rickets.

Linah sells fruit in the market to feed and clothe her five children.  It took months saving and scraping, but Linah was finally able to find the cash to spare to travel to CURE Zambia for Henry’s diagnosis and treatment.  At CURE Zambia, the former orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Norrish, diagnosed Henry with Blount’s Disease—a disorder affecting the growth of the tibia at the knee joint causing a bowing of the leg.  Dr. Swann, CURE Zambia’s former medical director, first operated on little Henry in June 2008.  The operation was a success—or so everyone thought…

Dr. Swann gave little Henry a clean bill of health in October 2008 and discharged him from the hospital.  “I was so happy,” said Linah as her little boy rested in his hospital bed, “I thought everything was going to be okay”.  A few months later, Linah started to notice her son limping while he walked.  She also noticed that his right leg was bending outward again—this time much worse than before.  “I was having to carry him everywhere with me.  He was always getting tired,” said Linah with sadness.

Linah was urged to bring Henry back to CURE Zambia to be checked out again by our current medical director, Dr. Giorgio Lastroni.  After checking Henry thoroughly, examining his X-rays and doing some extra research, Dr. Lastroni re-diagnosed Henry with an extremely rare disease called focal fibrocartilaginous dysplasia. If you’re like me, your response is probably, “Huh?”  Well, focal fibrocartilaginous dysplasia of the tibia (FFCD) is a rare and benign condition associated with unilateral tibia vara in childhood.  Still sound like Greek to you?  Well, I decided to talk to Dr. Lastroni to get a layman’s interpretation of this disease.

“FFCD is essentially an abnormality in the growth of the upper part of a child’s shin bone,” said Dr. Lastroni while flipping through one of his medical journals.  “It’s extremely rare.”  In fact, FFCD is so rare that Dr. Lastroni is planning a phone conference with some of the medical directors and orthopedic surgeons across the CURE network to discuss Henry’s condition.

The good news is that this disease is benign and Henry should pull through and continue to grow normally.  Linah is very pleased.  “The hospital is helping us a lot, and if CURE Zambia wasn’t here, we wouldn’t be able to take our children to specialists.”

We are certainly glad to help Henry get the best care medically possible!

Editor’s note: This story was corrected on 6 July 2011.  The titles of Drs. Norrish and Swann had been listed incorrectly.