Looking for Poring

I knew we’d made a mistake when we discharged Poring after his third full round of chemotherapy. I’d checked him in the morning, found him well, and told the uncle that the residents would discharge him when they came around. That night I realized that none of us had made a point of telling the uncle when to bring Poring back. You might suppose it would be clear after several admissions and discussions that the treatment needed to continue. Unfortunately, even with a lot of encouragement Poring hadn’t been coming on time for his treatments. His family isn’t unique; we like to give five or six rounds of chemotherapy for Burkitt’s lymphoma, but it’s rare to have a family actually bring the child that many times.

I was particularly concerned in Poring’s case, though. The tumor on his face had melted away, but he still had another that persisted. If it wasn’t gone by now, it needed surgery. Besides, on this last admission there were a couple of small, suspicious masses on his arm and leg. I hoped that if they were tumor then they had appeared because of the inadequate treatment he had had. If we got him back on schedule he might still recover. Above all, I felt responsible because we hadn’t given a specific follow up date--not that it would have been kept anyway, but at least we needed to try.

So yesterday I went searching for Poring. All we had was the name of his county, so to speak, "Wase" (wah-seh). I thought I remembered that his brother had told how they have to ride a motorcycle from the village to Wase town, then take public transport (a "taxi" crammed full of adults, children, goods, and possibly a chicken or two) to Jos. I was glad to have a driver who had at least been to Wase. He assured me it was a very small town and someone would be sure to know Poring’s family.

We left at 9:00 am and drove south for two hours, then descended off the plateau to the plain. At the town of Lantang we turned east and drove another 20 miles to Wase. The town is situated at the base of a spectacular rock that pushes straight up several hundred feet, reminding me of Devil’s Tower in Wyoming (made famous by "Close Encounters of the Third Kind").