Doctors remove almost 5 kg of bark-like warts from right hand of Bangladeshi 'Tree Man'

Abul Bajandra, the 30-year-old Bangladeshi man more known in social media as the Tree Man, started on Sunday the long and difficult journey towards becoming normal. He underwent surgery in Dhaka to remove the warts on his right hand caused by the rare disease epidermodysplasia verricruciformis.

Surgeons from the Dhaka Medical College Hospital in Bangladesh removed an estimated five kilogrammes of the growth, which look like tree barks, from his right hand. Samanta Lal Sen, faculty director at the hospital, estimates that Bajandra would need at least 15 more surgeries over 12 months to totally remove all the warts – which has prevented him from living a normal life – from his body, reports The Telegraph.

Fortunately for Bajandra, who was forced to quit his job as a rickshaw driver because of his physical condition, the Bangladeshi government is paying for his medical bills. A day before his surgery, he said he wants to resume working again so he would be less dependent on Halima, his 21-year-old wife, and their three-year-old daughter. He shared that the only thing he could do then on his own with his hands is scratch his neck.

“I don’t think I can sleep tonight. For a poor fellow like me from a remote part of the country, this is too good to be true,” Bajandra states. Sen said that it is first time for the hospital to perform that kind of surgery, “so this is also something strange for us,” quotes CNN.

Sen and eight other doctors used a laser to remove the warts, burning the dead tissue layer-by-layer. However, they took care not to damage major nerves on the patient’s hands so he could eventually work again.

In a few weeks, the growth on his right hand would be further trimmed, says Sen. Then the surgeons would work on his left hand and finally on his feet. Beyond removing the bark-like warts, doctors would also perform skin grafting on the limbs, taking epidermis from parts of his body not affected by the condition.

He is only one of three known people in the world with the ailment, a genetic skin condition. One of the three, an Indonesian man, had his surgeries in 2008 to remove the warts. Because the ailment has no cure, doctors are hoping that unlike real trees, which when pruned would grow new branches, it would not be the case and Bajandra would eventually no longer be known as the Bangladeshi Tree Man.