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| Thach Thi Sa Ly (R) and her mother Thach Thi Sa Phay. |
In her thatched cranky house, Thach Thi Sa Ly, 35, sits motionless on a dilapilated bamboo bed when we visited her house. Her face is deformed by hundreds of tumors of different sizes many of which are as big as organges or lemons. Her eyes are also covered with the tumors, completely shutting out her eyesight.
When she saw us, she shook her hands as though she wanted to greet us.
"When she is happy, she just shakes her hands. If she smiles, you cannot realize she’s smiling," her mother Thach Thi Sa Phay said.
Phay cried while wiping her daughter’s sweat, saying, "When she was a child, she was the loveliest and strongest of the children. But…"
Ly, who was born in 1976, is the third child in the 9-member family. When she was born, she had two red moles on her back which the family considered as a good omen for her.
When she was 10 years old, some red tumors began to appear on her body. Her parents intended to take her to the hospital for treatment but had to give up the idea because they could not afford the hospital fees.
When she reached purberty, the tumors expanded and spread all over her body.
Her first tumor is now as big as a bowl, Phay said.
Five years ago, after saving a small amount of money from harvesting cherries in her garden, Sa Phay took her daughter to Soc Trang city’s hospital for treatment. But the doctors failed to diganose her rare condition and asked her parents to take her to Ho Chi Minh City. Without money, they have never had the chance.
"When the weather changes, she is often in a lot of pain but she never cries or screams, " Phay said.
Toadskin woman
Lam Tam Hien, a neighbor, told us Sa Ly was a pretty girl when shen was young.
"A normal child at that time, she tried to earn some money to help her poor family by harvesting cherries for other families," he said.
When Sa Ly grew up and sufferred from the rare condition, she was too shameful to go outside. Some neighbors said she was possessed while others called her a toadskin woman but nobody asks that she be kept away from them, Lam added.
"Sa Ly loves eating candy and rarely talks to strange people," Sa Phay told us.
When asked whether she wants to see doctors or not, she said briefly : "I hope I will recover from my disease so I can help my mother with the housework. "
