Since becoming a ma’am, I had the leisure of watching tv and there are two documentaries which caught my attention. First was entitled The Boy Who Has A Tumor For A Face. The story below is an excerpt from a webpage on ordinary children.
"Novemthree Siahaan, or Noventri, as appears to be the local version of his name, is a young boy from the Indonesian Batam Island. He developed what has been called a colossal tumour on his face which began before the age of two. Gigantiform Cementoma is believed to be caused by the abnormal growth of a tooth or teeth. This causes the tissue of the teeth to grow, uncontrollably, into huge facial tumours.
Local doctors had neither the skill nor the facilities to treat the boy, and coming from a poor family it seemed unlikely that they could seek outside help. The boy was shunned by the villagers who were totally unfamiliar with the condition. There are only 10 recorded instances of this disease in the World.
Novemthree’s saviour arrived in the form of Dr. David Lui, a Buddhist missionary from the Tzu Chi Foundation. Dr Lui agreed to send Novemthree to Haulien in Taiwan to see specialist who could attempt the extremely complicated process of removing the tumour. The Tzu Chi Foundation would fund this treatment and agreed to fund his ongoing treatment in the future.
The treatment was carried out by a team of specialists headed by Dr. Cheng over a fifteen week period. The tumour was so large that it had compressed his eyes and grown through the lower jaw to the point that the mandible had been destroyed. This meant that the surgeons could not fully remove the tumour. They would need to leave part of the tumour and reshape it to form the missing lower jaw. Before surgery could commence Dr Cheng was required to perform a tracheostomy to permit the child to breathe as the tumour had all but blocked his wind-pipe.
The procedure was immensely successful and Novemthree has responded wonderfully. It was hoped that minor operations every 2/3 years would keep the tumours under control. But, the sudden deterioration, just one year later, has thrown this schedule into disarray.
The final reconstruction would have to wait until bones in other parts of Novemthree’s body had grown sufficiently for grafts to be taken to form a new bone structure for his face.
At the start, Novemthree and his family, mother Mindo, father Siahaan and brother Saut, were shunned by the local villagers, but a year on and this has changed. Novemthree has made friends and the villagers are more accepting. He is able to lead something resembling a normal life.
However, all is not well, it has become obvious to the volunteers from the Tzu Chi Foundation that the tumours are still growing. So on July 5th 2005 Novemthree is returned to the Tz’u Chi Buddhist General Hospital in Hualien, Taiwan for further tests. A CT Scan reveals that the tumours are regrowing in every section of his face, and are more aggressive than anyone imagined. He will require immediate surgery to clear his airway and relieve the pressure building on his eyeball. It has become apparent that performing the operation will be dangerous and will also mean a lifetime in and out of the operating theatre for the boy.
To consent to his treatment, Mindo and Siahaan will commit Novemthree to a life of continual and painful treatment, far away from home. Repeat surgery is difficult and the planned operation will be the most dangerous he has so far undergone. Dr. Shuyr has a last minute concern, and decides that the only way the operation can proceed is to perform a permanent tracheotomy. This scares Mindo and throws the surgical team into a quandary. Caring for a permanent tracheotomy once back home will be very difficult, and at the last moment, the operation is cancelled.
Mindo and Novemthree return home to Batam in Indonesia where doctors hope Mindo and Siahaan will have time to come to terms with the tracheotomy. Sadly, on 14 September 2005, Novemthree died, quietly, in his sleep, not quite seven years old when he developed a respiratory problem from which he didn’t recover."
I cried and cried and cried for Novemthree’s parents and for him. I salute the parents for loving Novemthree unconditionally despite the fact that he is no normal child, the life they had gone through..being shunned away from the villagers and if it wasn’t for their saviour, Novemthree would never got the opportunity for any surgery and have to live their lives in isolation. I think what touched me the most was when his father lovingly cut his hair after the first two surgeries and how his father scratched his feet when he developed itchiness. Another emotional moment was when he refused to do his walking therapy..how his dad soothed him and to see his mother’s reaction when she saw him for the first time after 15 months of separation.
May Novemthree rest in peace…
The other documentary was about a Kazakhstan boy named Alamjan Nematilaev, who gave birth to his twin. Since his 3rd birthday, his family noticed that he had a big stomach but they never did anything about it. He was teased by his friends who said that he was pregnant. When he was 7, he complained of a stomach pains and difficulty in breathing. When doctors did a scan, they saw what they thought was a cyst so Alamjan underwent surgery to remove it. The doctors thoght something was weird about the cyst so they decided to cut it up. What they found inside was like a human form, though it looked abnormal in the sense that the body is not fully developed, they are almost certain that this is amedical condition termed as foetus in foetu, or baby within a baby. A foetus in foetu is a developmental hiccup that happens very rarely to identical twins. But the mistake comes so early in development that the twin inside never really had any chance of being a real live twin. It was stated in the documentary that one of of eight women are pregnant with twins but the twin die at the very early stage of pregnancy. Since 1900 or so, only 90 cases of foetus in foetu has been recorded.
Scary, huh? I mean I hear of difficulties during pregnancy but how would we know of this? I find this kind of experience traumatic for both parents and child carrying a twin he/she never knew. But no matter what, semua ini adalah dugaan Allah S.W.T and kita kena redha. Kita berdoa supaya dijauhkan daripada malapetaka atau dugaan yang dahsyat. AMIN!!
