When
we say malnourished, the first thing that comes to our mind are those people
who live in poverty, especially those children who didn’t have much to eat.
But
an eight year old girl in China almost died for being severely malnourished for
uncertain reason. Niuniu Liang, 8, lived in a village near the city of Zhoukou,
Henan Province in central China with her grandparents. She was raised by them,
while her parents worked from a far for most of the year.
When
her father Cai Liang, 36, went home for the Chinese New Year, he noticed that
Niuniu was severely skinny. He said, “I wanted to make sure she got some good
meals but then I realized she was being sick after each meal, and my parents
told me it was often a problem.”
Cai Liang brought his daughter to the hospital where she was
examined and X-ray. Shockingly X-ray shows a massive foreign body in Niuniu
Liang’ stomach, leaving little room for food.
Immediately she was operated to remove the enormous thing in
her tummy. Doctors were stunned when they discovered the thing inside was a
massive hairball blocking her digestive system and it weighs 2 kilograms.
The
girl’s father Cai Liang, 36, said, “We were always telling her not to chew her
hair, but we didn’t have any idea that it would end up accumulating her stomach
like this.”
According
to the doctors, “She probably started chewing her hair because she was
distressed at not having her parents around.”
Niuniu’s
father took the time off from work to look after her as she recovers. “I am
going to see if either myself or my wife can make sure we are around as she is
clearly missing her parents,” Cai Liang said.
The
surgery was successful but Niuniu will remain in hospital for observation for a
period of time with her father at her bedside.
Surprisingly, an 18-year-old teenager from Kyrgyzstan
suffers the same fate like to that 8-year-old girl from China.
Ayperi
Alekseeva has been picking up hair from the carpet and eating it for years. She
also chewed the tips of her hair. Then she started losing weight and couldn’t
eat anything.
She was brought to the hospital by her parents after
complaining of severe stomach pains. She went trough x-ray and doctors found
out that something is blocking her digestive system, referring her for
immediate surgery.
The doctors were speechless to what they have witnessed and
removed from Miss Alekseeva stomach, an enormous hairball weighing almost 9lb
(4kg).
According
to Bahadir Bebezov, the hospital’s senior professor of surgery, “By the time we
got her, she couldn’t even drink water. We realized we needed to operate
immediately. It was actually the only alternative, nothing else would solve the
problem. In fact, her stomach was so badly swollen from hair and bits of wool
from the carpet that it literally just oozed out soon as the wall of the
stomach was cut.”
“Psychologically,
apart from a habit of picking up hair from the carpet and eating it, the young
girl was perfectly normal and healthy.” They also added that despite searching
through 50 years of medical records, they could find no evidence of such a
large hairball” he added:.
Ayperi
Alekseeva is now recovering from the surgery and made an ultimate promised
never to chew her hair ever again!
H/T
: wereblog.com