COMING BACK FROM ROCK BOTTOM

Mieke, our eldest, was born in Lusaka, Zambia, where my husband worked as a hotelier. She was perfect, and a perfectly healthy baby – she never got acold. Although she did take a bit longer to start moving and only did a slow sort-of bum-shuffle crawl, I didn’t think anything of it.

We moved to Tanzania when Mieke was one. She started to walk at 14 months but always held my hand – just like any toddler learning to walk, I thought. Until she tried to climb a chair, grabbed her hip and yelled out in pain. I couldn’t see anything wrong: no wound or bruise, but we started to notice that other movements also caused her to call out in pain.

I thought she may