The human body is amazing, but unfortunately, some of Mother Nature’s quirks can blight people’s lives. While a lot of people are born with a birthmark, few know what it’s like to have a large proportion of their face covered by a huge mole.
But one person who does is 23-year-old Xiao Yan, who has been forced to have four egg-sized balloons inserted into her face.
Xiao has a rare genetic condition known as a congenital melanocytic nevus, which affects one percent of all babies in the world.
Growing up, she accepted that her face was always going to be different, but doctors began to fear for her health when she complained that the mole was hurting – something which indicated that it had the potential to turn into a malignant tumor in the future.
Doctors subsequently told the 23-year-old and her family that they had to take action before it was too late.
However, the treatment that removing the mole involved, which is taking place at the Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital in eastern China, meant that Xiao’s condition had to deteriorate to get better.
In order to save Xiao’s life, doctors inserted egg-sized balloons into her face so that her skin can be stretched enough to successfully remove it. This is being done so that the area removed by the mole can be replaced with skin from elsewhere on her face.
Xiao, who is from the rural village of Longjing in Guizhou province in south-western China, said that the mole has blighted much of her adult life.
“Despite the big black mole on my face, I enjoyed my childhood playing with my friends,” she said. “I was carefree.”
“But as I grew older, the fact that I was ‘different’ became increasingly magnified.”
Her mother, Yang Xiu’e, revealed that she has had to “beg” people not to torment her daughter.
Xiao talks about her innovative treatment:
Despite coming from a poor family, they managed to raise $15,658 to begin Xiao’s treatment, which began in October when doctors inserted expanders into her face. Since then, they have been injecting saline into the devices twice a week.
“During the first month of treatment, my face hurt so much because of the egg-sized expanders and the saline injections that I wanted to slam my face into a wall,” Xiao said.
This particular stage of Xiao’s treatment will continue until June this year. She will then have to have a further five or six surgeries to remove the mole.
“I used to feel sorry for myself,” she admitted, before adding, “But I’ve grown up under the support of my family and now I’m much more positive.”
Xiao has now been dubbed the “Gourd Doll” because of the shape of the balloons, which resemble gourd fruits.
Her family is still in the process of saving up money for her follow up treatments and have currently raised around $7,828.
Xiao, however, is not the first person whose life has been blighted by an extremely bizarre looking medical condition. Twenty-seven-year-old Abul Bajandar from Bangladesh suffers from an even rarer condition than Xiao called epidermodysplasia verruciformis.
In fact, he is just one of four people in the world to have ever been diagnosed with the disease, which has led to people calling him “Tree man”.
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