Almost a year and 16 operations later, Bangladesh’s 27-year-old “tree man” Abul Bajandar can now hold his child with his own hands.
“I never thought I would ever be able to hold my kid with my hands,” Bajandar told AFP at the Dhaka Medical College on Friday. “Now I feel so much better. I can hold my daughter in my lap and play with her. I can’t wait to go back home.”
“I was so worried about raising my daughter,” he said. “I hope the curse won’t return again,” Bajandar added.
Bajandar, who used to work as a rickshaw puller gained media attention across the world in early 2016 due to his unusual condition. Medically known as Epidermodysplasia Verruciformis, it caused wart-like lesions, resembling tree branches and bark, to grow from his hands and feet and earned him the tag of “Tree Man”.
Due to the rare condition, he was ostracised by his neighbours and also lost his livelihood in his native village in the coastal district of Khulna.
Following the worldwide media attention, the Bangladesh government had announced that it would pay for his treatment.
On February 19, 2015, Bajandar had his first ray of hope when a team of nine doctors conducted a surgery that took around three and a half hours at the Dhaka Medical College.
Before the operation, he had said, “I have fought for 10 years and endured the pain. I want to live like a normal person. I just want to be able to hold my daughter properly and hug her. It would be nice to eat with my own hands as well,” CNN had quoted him as saying before the surgery.
He had first noticed the symptoms when he had cut his knee in his teenage years and ignored them thinking they were harmless.
Epidermodysplasia Verruciformis is a rare hereditary condition, often causing skin tumours and characterised by an "unusual susceptibility to infection with specific types of human papillomavirus", according to the US National Library of Medicine.
Other recognised “tree men” include Romanian Ion Toader and Dede Koswara from Indonesia. Koswara reportedly died last year.