Monthly Archives: November 2010

The Battle Against Ezcema

jet

If you know Jet, you’d know that he has a skin condition called Ezcema – I think he’s quite severe (having not known any child worse than him).

And so we have taken this holiday opportunity in Surabaya to consult different people and try different approaches.

First we went to a Shinshe (Chinese medicine man?) whom apparently also a doctor. He attributed Jet’s condition to his weak maag (can’t remember the English word). He advised against any kind of milk especially formula milk.

We then went to a skin doctor. She gave us skin lotion that needs to be applied 3 times daily and a medicine called Celastamine (from what I read, it seems to be an anti histamine).  She also advised against eating chicken, egg, fish.

Lina also wants me to try the traditional Javanese plant called Putrowali (which she called wrongly as Brotowali). Traditionally the plant will be boiled and the water will be drank, since Jet is still a child, we didn’t give the water for him to drink but we are using the water for his bath.

To summarize here are the things that we are trying:

  • Minimize the use of air-con especially when he’s sleeping – thankfully it has been cloudy for most part of the week so it is actually not very hot at all
  • Jet has not been drinking any kind of milk for few days now
  • He takes a bath twice a day (doctor suggested 3 times – but I just couldn’t fit in the time). We don’t use any soap/shampoo for the bath – only water. At the end of the bath, I use a little towel dipped on Putrowali’s water and wipe it on Jet’s body for few mins. After bath, we apply doctor’s lotion. As usual sorbolene on the parts of the body that don’t get the lotion applied.
  • We try to limit Jet’s consumption of chicken, egg and fish – it’s impossible to avoid them completely.

At the moment, the intensity of the Ezcema seems to be decreasing (less redness) compared to the first few days here. However it seems to be spreading little bit to other area of the body, noticeably on his face (although I am not 100% sure whether it’s Eczema or not).

It’s time consuming to look after him, and I do pray that his skin condition will get better over the time. At the same time looking after him, somehow makes me love him even more.

Lina and Jet’s milestone

family, jet

Jet finished his last day with Wind in the Willows childcare on Wednesday. He’ll go to SOS pre-school next year. I can’t believe it’s already one year with this centre. I can still remember the first few weeks were quite hard, Lina had to come and pick him up early a couple of times as he was crying and was asking to go home. But over the time he settles in very well and made a few good friends, his first best friend was Trinity (not sure whether they are still best friend now) and his current best friend is Jaiden (our family get to know Jaiden’s family in the process too).

Jet has made farewell cards for his teachers. He managed to give out the cards personally to his teachers, except for one teacher, Todd – and he was quite disappointed that Todd wasn’t in on his last day (and few other teachers too like Nat). Anyway, yeah I am thankful for this one year – Jet has certainly learned quite a handful of things from this centre and most importantly he has developed relationships with the people there. I am sure he will remember the time in this centre as a happy one.

Another person in the household has also achieved a milestone last week, Lina got her P driver’s licence last Saturday. I am so proud of her, she managed to pass the driving test in one sitting. For someone who has know driving experience at all to where she is at now, in just a couple of months, is really something. And yeah, I hope and pray that she’ll be a good and safe driver. Driving is still making her very nervous, hopefully with more driving hours under her belt, the nervousness will cease.