HE SCOOTS across the room, making a beeline first for the milk tart then for the TV cables before clambering over the dogs onto the couch and into his mom’s lap.

Sounds like normal toddler be haviour, doesn’t it? Kids of this age are usually go-go-go, sticking their fingers in every pie – literally and figuratively.

But little Nathan Ungerer’s agility is quite remarkable when you look at his left foot. Swollen to the size of a balloon, it’s several times larger than his right foot and the toes are red, stubby nubbins protruding from the swelling.

Still, little Nathan manages rather well. “Funnily enough he only loses his balance when he walks slowly, not when he runs,” says Salie Kemp (78), Nathan’s great-grandmother who looks after the little boy during the day. “Last night he gave himself a black eye when he hit his head on a bedside table.”

Nathan has been diagnosed with Milroy disease, a rare congenital condition characterised by lymphoedema, a dis order in which the body’s lymphdrainage system is compromised, leading to fluid build-up.

In this little boy’s case, lymphatic fluid isn’t draining from his left foot and this build-up between the bones in the foot causes the bones to grow faster (see box).

Selona van Wyngaard (47), Nathan’s grandmother, says he urgently needs an MRI to establish exactly where the lymph is leaking and will then need an operation to shorten the bones in his foot – otherwise it may have to be amputated.

“We’ll do everything we can to save his foot,” Selona says as Nathan reaches his arms out to her and rests his swollen foot in her hand.