Treeman VS Cauliflowerman

I am sure many of you heard and have seen somewhere on the WWW of the Treeman in Indonesia. He live most of his live growing root-like warts all over his body, hands, feet and face. His wife left him and he was working in a freak show exhibition just to put food on the table and to support himself and his children.


When I first learned of Dede, I was fascinated by the story and I wanted to know more. I even have a dream of meeting him personally and touching those root-like projections and wonder how did all this happened. It is really amazing how the normal human tissues can transform into dry roots. Just amazing. You can read more about Dede here

Recently, on the day of my on call, which was last Tuesday, I decided to work in the emergency department for a few hours, just to pass time while the hospital doors are open for family and friends to visit the patients. I can be doing my work in the wards as the patients will be swarmed by dotting visitors.

As I was busy running from a catheter insertion to attending to an accident victim, I found myself walking towards the procedure room hoping to get some suturing done on some patients. I saw that the curtains were drawn and I was really hoping to jump into a suturing procedure. But what welcomed me behind those curtains were more than I had expected.

As I entered, the student nurses were cleaning a stump on a 50 years old man. I thought it was just one of those poorly-cared diabetic stump. But when I took a good look at it, it was actually a growth on the man's congenitally defected foot. He was born without a foot and in the pass 4-6 months, a cauliflower-like growth has taken place of the stump.


The man came in because he accidentally hit his stump on the floor and it bleed massively. I told the student nurses to let me guide them in cleaning the stump and growth as the creases between the growth was already smelling really fowl. I usually work without my mask on, no matter how fowl the case is. But this time round, I had to put a mask on.

I talked to the patient casually, creating a rapport between me and him, and also creating a trust. I want him to know that we want to help the best we can so that he can rid himself of the growth that is actively growing. To consider the time that it has taken to grow, it could mean that the growth is of a malignant origin.

The man could loose the entire of his left leg because most of his superficial vessels are non-viable.

I am so happy to be the first persons to see this Cauliflowerman in Malaysia. So I guess it really pays to be a little proactive in doing what I love, surgery and acute and emergecy.