I just watched the program on Chanel 4+1 and I happened to stop at this channel since I simply found the name of the program interesting. Once I started watching it, I was absolutely shocked and had all mixed feeling in my mind.
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| Didier with his mom Luz |
The program was called "Turtle Boy" and it was about a seven year old boy called Didier Montalvo from rural Columbia in South America. The reason why Didier was compared with a turtle is because by the age of six he had a half of his body covered by 'a rare birthmark-congenital melanosytic nevus – affects around 1 in 20,000 newborn babies '( Mirror news, 2012). Rather than explaining I just can show you the photo of this poor boy.
Now, you can see how bad the situation was.I say was, because I watched the whole program and I can assure you that at the moment Didier is doing good and doesn't have this mule at his back anymore. Thanks to a surgeon Neil Bulstrode from Great Ormond Street Hospital in London was invited to Colombia to help the team operate. Neil was know for helping kids with such syndrome for many times, but 'Didier’s CMN was the worst case I had ever seen due to the size and bulk of the lesion', he said.
As I've seen in the program all doctors were afraid of the risk and the major risk was a huge loss of blood during the surgery. When decision about surgery was made, Didier was asked to give a certain amount of blood to replace the one that will be probably lost. While I watched, I wondered how boy was so brave all this time and I wasn't surprised when Didier refused to go to the hospital when surgery's morning came up. The safe call from his granddad got his confidence back, so he packed his things and went there.
The surgery went quite well and overall five kilos of this birthmark was removed from his back. Isn't it huge? I felt so relieved when they were done and I didn't even feel uncomfortable when watching the process of surgery because I was so worried about the result. A week later new skin was placed and process of repairer has started. Didier went back home to his family's farm where his relatives couldn't wait for him to come. Another important day happened in his life when he had a chance to go on his first school day as a normal boy.
I find this story very touchy and even cried at the end as this boy can finally live the life he and his family dreamed about.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/turtle-boy-mole-on-didier-montalvos-805688-Link to the article about Didier
Thanks for reading
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