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Mar 20, 2012

Vincent Oketch, 9, had just started trying out walking at the age of one-and-a-half years when a strange disease hit him.

 By Chris Kiwawulo 

Vincent Oketch, 9, had just started trying out walking at the age of one-and-a-half years when a strange disease hit him. 

At first his parents thought he had developed elephantiasis, but a medical check-up at Tororo Hospital proved them wrong.
 
Oketch’s father, Tito Opwoya, said his son’s legs continued swelling and in no time, Oketch was confined to a wheelchair.  
“Since then, he has outgrown three wheel chairs and has none now,” Opwoya said. 
 
Oketch, who was a pupil at Mbula Primary School in Tororo, stopped attending school last year. “Oketch became too heavy to move. It required at least five men to carry him to school which was over a kilometre from home,” said Opwoya. 
 
When seated, Oketch, occupies space of about four children of his age.
 
Doctors at the Comprehensive Rehabilitation Services in Uganda (CORSU) in Entebbe, said Oketch’s left leg was shorter than the right one and the right one bigger than the left. 
 
Medical personnel at the centre advised that the boy gets a scan which costs about  sh1.1m. 
 
“The scan will give a detailed report about the extent to which the lymph nodes have been damaged. The doctors also said he has lots of fluid in his legs and buttocks that needs to be sucked out,” said Dr. Isaac Osire, a volunteer who supports the parents to look after Oketch.
 
This is just part of the treatment that Oketch requires, but his family does not have money. 
 
Lymphatic obstruction is a condition of localised fluid retention and tissue swelling caused by a compromised lympatic system. The system returns the interstistial fluid.
 
 
 

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