This little cutie pie has Kwashiorkor... it's a form of malnutrition... and... unless some serious diet changes take place, she will die from it. Hard to believe when you see those puffy cheeks right? But this form of malnutrition (sometimes called wet malnutrition) is from lack of protein. Basically her body has so little protein intake that eventually her kidneys are compromised... she leaks fluid into her tissues and eventually will go into a coma and die.
When her swelling started her parents took her to the area health center and they gave them a weeks supply of vitamins and dewormed her... um, yeah... so that didn't help! (ok.. the deworming was good). There was no instructions given to the parents on diet changes or even what the problem was... until today, the parents had no idea that all their daughters problems (tiredness, hair falling out, swelling, etc) was all related... and that yes... she will die unless they do something!
So we went over some SERIOUS diet changes for this little girl (who only eats rice and sometimes kamote tops)... we gave some of our supply of peanut butter and mongo beans to get them started... she will return weekly for progress reports until she is hopefully a healthy happy 2 year old that she should be! I don't care if I have to use up all my supply of peanut butter (which is a pain to find down here)... but this little girl WILL live (if I have ANYTHING to say about it)! I think God was just reminding us why he had us here...
The last picture is of her bloated belly... the muscles eventually become lax and the belly will basically 'fall out'... or look very bloated like... not shown is her super skinny back and shoulders (where she isn't swollen).
Please do pray for her and the others like her around here... it's such a preventable disease, but education is a key in bringing about change. Thank you for those that support what we do... as you can see... it does make a difference!