Jose and I welcomed our son, Bo Tseun Bernabe Verlarde-Chan, into the world on Sunday, June 3, 2007, weighing in at 6 lbs 13 oz. and 20 inches long. GUIDE TO HIS NAME:"Bo Tsuen" is of Chinese origin. The transliteration is of the Cantonese pronunciation. Bo means "treasure or treasured", and Tsuen is a word for "big river" and is his generational name. Bernabe is from the Bolivian side of the family.
He was born with a very rare and life-limiting condition that took 5 weeks and two hospitals to identify: microvillous inclusion disease. Basically, his small intestines cannot absorb the amount of nutrients he needs to live, although they do create all the enzymes needed to break down food. The microvilli, or finger-like protrusions that give the intestines all their surface area are not where they belong on the surface of the intestines, but are stuck in these bubbles (or inclusions) imbedded in the tissue instead. We were told that these children often do not make it to their third birthday, but that it wasn't a death-sentence (huh?).
