The new face of Tao Ti Lai
The tumor began to grow when Tao Ti Lai was only 3 years old. It covered most of the girl's face and neck, threatening to blind her and block her breathing.
The illness forced Lai to leave school. She was unable to perform even small daily activities.
Since 1996, when the tumor first appeared in the form of a small tubercle, the girl has visited many hospitals, but doctors could not help her. In 2007, she was examined by volunteer doctors from the United States. They made the diagnosis, but warned that the operation would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars - money that the girl's family does not have. However, the International Children's Fund (IKF) drew attention to the fate of Tao Ti Lai, which helped raise money for treatment. Together with her mother, she flew to the United States, where the operation was successful. At Gufen. Chinese "Elephant Man".
In January 2008, he became the protagonist of the Chinese and world press. From a thirty-two-year-old outcast who terrified his neighbors, he turned into a symbol of the unity and power of the nation. And I do not know a better lesson for other peoples who want to surprise the world.
He is 32 years old, and his face weighed 15 kilograms before the operation. His height is 139 centimeters: because of the huge head, a curvature of the spine occurred, and at the age of 13 he actually stopped growing. The first tumor - above the eye - appeared when he was two years old, and neighbors told his mother that he would grow up to be a great sage or a major government official: a big head is a sign of intelligence. But the swelling above the eye grew, and then other neoplasms appeared, their growth accelerated.
At twenty, Wu Gufeng had to walk, holding his monstrously overgrown face with both hands. Unlike Merrick, he did not suffer from fibromas of the back or arms: his body is the body of a normal person, although delayed in the adolescent stage of development. His brain was not affected either: no mental retardation was observed in Wu Gufen's case. But at the age of twenty-five, he almost lost his sight, because the eye due to the growth of a tumor began to "slide" down his cheek, then all his teeth fell out. By the age of thirty-two, he almost could not eat on his own, and only his relatives understood his speech.
In May 2005, the American artist of Chinese origin Gao Dan Wu learned about him. While traveling in the southwest of China, he heard about the patient and wished to meet him personally. The sight of Wu Gufen amazed him, and the artist began a campaign to save him.
Two years before U Gufen, a 47-year-old Romanian woman named Lucia Bangz was operated on in the United States, whose benign tumor on her back and hips grew to 80 kilograms. Under socialism, she was operated on for free - when she was 22, the 15-kilogram growth was removed by local doctors, the Discovery Channel paid for the second operation in exchange for the patient's consent to star in a film about a medical miracle. The case of U Gufen, however, was more complicated: the tumor of the Romanian woman did not affect the most important organs, but in his case it was located near the largest vessels. It was the fear of irreparable blood loss that frightened everyone who was offered to undertake the operation.
Finally, Gao Dan Wu managed to come to an agreement with Chen Guanming, the deputy head of the region: Wu Gufeng undertook to operate in China itself, and the state took part in this. The remaining 16 thousand dollars were collected at lightning speed, they were taken to the city hospital, and on June 29, 2006 in Guilin, the first operation was performed on the Chinese "elephant man". It lasted from 8 am to noon, and had to be stopped: there was not enough blood in the hospital. The patient needed a continuous transfusion, to prolong the operation would mean his ruin. That first time, 10 kilograms of tumor was excised from him. In principle, this is far from a record - the largest tumor ever excised, weighed 137 kilograms, if Guinness is not lying (polycystic ovary disease, 2003, Stanford). But this is the largest facial tumor ever removed from a patient - and such growths,as in the case of Wu Gufen, the history of medicine does not remember. His tumor was 97 centimeters in diameter and more than half a meter in length.
A year later, again in the summer, Gufen was operated on again and this time there was enough blood. All of China, but what is there - the whole world watched the unprecedented transformation of a patient from a Chinese province: he could quite clearly say to the camera: "I can't wait for my recovery and return home." The growth on the right was almost completely removed, and the right eye, which had long since crawled out of orbit, was saved. Doctors now worked on the left side of his face and removed a total of 20 small tumors. The monstrously overgrown mouth was closed, and Wu Gufeng was able to eat on his own.
There was one more, final operation, and on January 8 of this year, doctors under the command of the chief surgeon of the Shanghai Central Hospital Liu Lizhi removed the last remnants of the tumors: this operation was the most difficult and was postponed, since it was necessary to affect the main vessels. It could only be carried out under the condition of deep freezing - this technology appeared in China relatively recently. This time it was no longer necessary to collect money - the whole world was watching the fate of the "elephant man", and China received the largest and most profitable PR in recent years on his rescue.
China is already positioning itself as one of the centers for plastic surgery. Wu Gufeng himself will be able to leave the hospital in mid-February and finally return to his homeland, although his treatment is still far from over. But there is no longer any danger to his life. Of course, a new tumor growth is possible, but the famous patient will now be under continuous medical supervision.
Actually, this whole story is not just a medical curiosity, although the news feeds of all major agencies put information about the third operation of Wu Gufeng at the very top: humanity is always proud of its achievements.
The point, however, is that the history of the "elephant man" played a role comparable to the launch of the first cosmonaut to form a positive image, in which China is very interested today. When a nation unites around something unconditionally positive, kind and disinterested, this not only straightens its image in the eyes of others, but also sharply raises its own mood. A tiny man from a distant southern village who carried an overwhelming burden for thirty years is one of the symbols of today's China.
French "Elephant Man" Pascal Kohler
French surgeons literally gave new life and hope for personal happiness to 30-year-old Pascal Kohler, whose face was disfigured by a terrible disease. A year ago, he underwent a complex operation to remove a tumor and a face transplant from a dead donor.
For 24 years, the poor man suffered from the rare Recklinhausen disease, a rare genetic disease, the last case of which was recorded almost 100 years ago. The story of Joseph Merrick, a man with a deformed tumor face, became the plot of the famous film by David Lynch "The Elephant Man".
The world's first complete face transplant, led by Professor Lantieri, took almost 16 hours. Doctors warned Pascal that this was too great a risk for the patient and that at any moment he could die on the operating table.
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But Pascal did not hesitate to take this opportunity.
“When the doctors began to prepare me for the operation, I was literally jubilant. I got my chance at life. For the first time I can feel like a normal person. People now look at me differently, they accept me. Now I would like to find a wife and have children,”says Pascal.
Now that a year has passed after the operation and Pascal has completely got rid of the disease, he is thinking about the profession of an accountant and dreams of a full-fledged family.
The former "elephant man" does not know the name of the donor - the doctors keep this information secret. But Pascal remembers him with gratitude.
“Not a day goes by that I do not pray for the peace of the soul of my savior. He not only gave me a face, he gave me life, - Pascal Kohler's confession is quoted by News Of The World.
A leg weighing 70 kilograms
Chinese Cheng Zhongtau is 29 years old. At the age of two, a tumor began to grow on his right leg, which over the years reached a weight of more than 70 kg, completely absorbing the limb.
Due to the fact that Cheng lives in a remote village, he could not count on adequate medical care. This week, doctors from a hospital in Changsha, the capital of Henan province, examined the young man.
They say he suffers from neurofibroma - usually a benign tumor of the nerves. It is not yet known whether the doctor plans to perform surgery to remove the tumor, reports The Sun.
Man Without a Face. Jose Mestre
The Portuguese Jose Mestre, who was not allowed by his religious beliefs to treat his disease, finally agreed to treat a tumor that weighs 5 kilograms and turns everyday food into hell. Leading British surgeons will perform the operation, promising to remove 80% of the tumor.
A member of the Jehovah's Witnesses sect, who for several decades has refused any kind of surgery to remove a giant tumor on his face, has hope thanks to a British doctor and a new medical technique.
Not wanting to receive a blood transfusion, Portuguese Jose Mestre allowed the tumor that appeared on his lip in his youth to grow to terrible sizes.
But now one of Britain's leading facial surgeons has proposed curing 51-year-old Jose using ultrasound waves to coagulate blood before surgery. This will allow the growth to be removed without the risk of serious bleeding, thus not violating Jose's religious prohibition on blood transfusions, which hitherto has prevented him from being treated.
Jose's case in Britain was handled by two doctors - Loshan Kangesu, a plastic surgeon at Broomfield Hospital, and Ian Hutchison at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London. Dr. Hutchinson believes surgery could dramatically change Jose's appearance. “I think we can remove most of the tumor - about 80 percent,” he says.
Jose's disease is called hemangioma and is caused by abnormalities in the capillaries and veins in his face. In a comparison, the river, which was supposed to carry blood back to the heart, turned into a stagnant lake. Every day, Jose leaves his home in the suburbs of Lisbon to one of the main squares of the city, where he sits all day, flaunting himself and answering questions from curious passers-by. He became something of a local celebrity.
After the death of his mother, from whom he adopted his religious beliefs, his brothers and sisters, with whom he is very close, took care of him, unable to find a job and start a family.
"It's very difficult to say why he hasn't been treated before," says Rob Farquhar, producer of the Discovery Channel documentary about Jose that brought him to the UK. Jose's own uneasy attitude toward his illness. Unsuccessful trips to Germany and Spain in search of treatment in his youth sowed distrust of doctors in him. Combined with faith and fear of life "without a mask", to which he managed to get used, it seems, turned Jose into morose fatalist.
This inertia infuriated his relatives, who did not share his religious convictions. During consultations with Dr. Hutchison in London, Jose initially refused to discuss a proposal for an operation without blood transfusion. But now Jose seems ready to fight back the disease. He agreed to Dr. Hutchison's offer to return to London for surgery on one of the small growths. If treatment works, most of Jose's tumor can be removed and his face repaired in one 12-hour operation.
Despite the experimental nature of the technique, Hutchison, who offered to carry out the operation for free, is confident of success. “I hope everything is fine with him. If he wants to come to me, then my door is always open,”says the doctor.
Gao Ni's tumor
Gao Ni, an eight-year-old girl from Yuan Village, Jiangxi Province, East China, suffers from a tumor in her lower lip.
The tumor was already at the birth of the girl. but due to poverty she was not able to carry out the necessary operation. On May 28, 2007, her father took her to see doctors at Gannan Medical College Hospital. But even there, the doctors said that the operation and the next cosmetic operation could cost a lot for the family, and the father decided to return with his daughter.
Muscle man
Huang Liguan is also from China. He is 58 years old. The tumor struck him 17 years ago. At first there was a bizarre growth in the neck area, which he ignored, but the tumor continued to grow and soon reached a weight of 15 kilograms.
The tumor causes severe pain and restricts the movement of a man. According to the latest information, he was agreed to have an operation in one of the clinics.
