Health & Medicine

A Man Dubbed As 'Tree Man' Gets Successful Surgery, Could Now Hold His Child

Elaine Hannah
First Posted: Jan 11, 2017 03:50 AM EST

Abul Bajandar dubbed as "Tree Man" because of having a bark-like appearance on his hands and feet finally got surgery. He can now see his fingers and could hold his daughter normally as he wished ever since.

Bajandar was diagnosed with epidermodysplasia verruciformis, which is a rare genetic disease that could develop to skin tumors and susceptible to human papillomavirus. Bajandar was the only one of four people in the world diagnosed with the said condition. He is the first person to be cured of the illness. It is reported that an Indonesian man died of the said condition last year, according to Washington Post.

The 27-year-old man, who lived in a small town in Bangladesh, got his surgery when he asked for help from Sunil Das, SATV bureau chief, who happened to be in their village covering the municipal elections. Das thought that he was asking for money. But when Bajandar showed his hands to him, he realized he had never seen anything like that before.

He told CNN that he wanted to live like a normal person. "I just want to be able to hold my daughter properly and hug her."

His story became sensationalized and many people donated for his treatment. Furthermore, a team of doctors and plastic surgeons at Dhaka Medical College Hospital wanted to treat him free of charge. In January 2016, the doctors started performing tests on Bajandar to remove his warts without damaging his major nerves or having health problems. He has had 16 procedures since then and finally got rid of them. Bajandar finally got his hands back.

Samanta Lal Sen, plastic surgery coordinator at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, said that Bajandar's cure was a remarkable milestone in the history of medical science. She further said that they operated on him at least 16 times to remove warts and his hands and feet are now almost fine.

Bajandar never thought he would ever be able to hold his kid with his hands. "Now I feel so much better, I can hold my daughter in my lap and play with her and cannot wait to go back home," Bajandar said.

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