At one point, he seemed to sprout contorted yellow-brown branches 3 feet long. Koswara, it appeared, was becoming half-plant — turning into the verdant green jungle around him. His mysterious ailment cost him his marriage, career and independence. Begging for coins, he ended up in a traveling freak show, enduring stares, known as the Tree Man of Java. I guess I am a Tree Man. Then he got lucky.
Koswara, he said, has the common human papillomavirus, a condition that usually causes small warts in sufferers. But Koswara has a rare immune deficiency that allowed the lesions to run wild, covering his face and eventually transforming his limbs with root-like barnacles known as cutaneous horns.
Gaspari thought he could help. Working with local doctors, he designed a drug treatment program. Last year, Indonesian surgeons used an electric saw to cut 13 pounds of warts and decaying matter. The results were astounding. For the first time in a decade, Koswara could make out his toes and fingers. Once again able to hold a pen, he began playing Sudoku and pecked out text messages on a cellphone.
There was even talk about returning to work. But complications developed when Koswara fell victim to a medical turf battle. Indonesian health officials suspected Gaspari of taking blood and tissue samples abroad without authorization to use them for commercial purposes.
Although Gaspari later smoothed over the misunderstanding, he has since left the medical team. Since then, Koswara has suffered yet another setback. After months in remission, his disease has begun to wage a counter-assault, the warts returning to cover his body at a faster rate than ever before. The year-old has been undergoing a radical transformation at a tropical hospital in Bandung and in the time it takes to conceive and give birth to new life, a team of local doctors have performed eight major operations involving an electric saw, skin grafting and the removal of pounds of dead skin tissue hardened by the years.
Dede, a father of two who goes by his first name, is expected to return home to his remote village at the end of this month. His parents, siblings and children have been visiting him regularly at the hospital. Hardisiswo Soedjana, a leading plastic surgeon in Indonesia and the head doctor in Dede's case. In the coming months, Dede will return to Hasan Sadikin hospital for at least two more major surgeries. Doctors will continue to work on his immune system and find ways to cope with the challenges of excessive bleeding during operations, the deep growth of his warts and the search for more skin donors.
It wasn't until Dede was a teenager that what started as a simple wart on his knee spiraled his life out of control.
They started spreading over his entire body as a result of the human papillomavirus, or HPV. It is a common virus that approximately 20 million Americans live with, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some without even knowing it.
Despite multiple treatments to remove the growths, they continued regrowing and eventually cost Mr Koswara his family, job and independence. Nurses said that in the weeks leading up to his death, Mr Koswara had resigned himself to the illness and smoked heavily to help pass the time.
By the time he died, Mr Koswara was estranged from his wife and children, and the disease has also cost him his job as a carpenter. Here he is pictured in with his young cousin Andra. Mr Koswara suffered from Lewandowsky-Lutz dysplasia, a disease which results in uncontrolled human papilloma virus HPV infections and the growth of scaly warts resembling tree bark.
He died of a complicated series of health problems, including hepatitis, liver and gastric disorders, three months after he had checked into hospital. One of his doctors said: 'He was resigned to his illness.
He must've been pretty tough to face all the insults he suffered over the years. According to his sister, his was unable to feed himself or speak because he was too weak.
She added that he remained estranged from his family up until his death - but according to those treating him, he never gave up hope of a cure. He wanted to go back to being a carpenter and starting a home business. The disease was so severe his hands and feet were covered with more than 13lbs of warts, also called 'cutaneous horns'.
The severity of his condition gave him international notoriety - including several feature-length documentaries highlighting his plight. The warts were severely debilitating, preventing the proper use of his hands and feet - and were believed locally to have been the result of a curse. His wife of ten years also left him after he couldn't support them and their two children. In , he had 13lb of warts surgically removed from his body.
The operation was such a success that he could play Sudoku and wear flip-flops. But the growths continued to return, requiring two surgeries a year to keep the infections down.
Mr Koswara's life was thrown upside down by the incurable disease - his wife of ten years left him after he could not support them and their two children, he was unable to work and lost his independence. He died late last month of a complicated series of health problems, including hepatitis, liver and gastric disorders, doctors said.
Pictured is one of his feet on December The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. Argos AO. Privacy Policy Feedback. Indonesian known as 'the tree man' due to disease which left him with branch-like warts dies without ever fulfilling his dream of living to see a cure and becoming a carpenter again Dede Koswara was given the nickname due to the warts covering his body He suffered from a rare, incurable disease which caused the huge growths The illness tragically cost him his wife and family, job and independence Mr Koswara had always hoped to live until a cure was found for the disease He dreamed of returning to carpentry, but by the end was unable to move By Corey Charlton for MailOnline Published: GMT, 3 February Updated: GMT, 4 February e-mail 2.
0コメント