A young Chinese woman with a rare condition that has caused her legs to deform and triple in size is dreaming of a normal life after coming to Taiwan for surgery.
Wang Cheng (王程), 24, cannot work or even wear pants because of the painful elephantiasis that has dogged her since the age of six and left her with legs weighing 50kg.
“I cannot go out to work,” Wang said as she slowly raised herself into a sitting position in her bed at Taipei’s Wanfang Hospital. “Nor can I wear pants like normal people.”
PHOTO: AFP
Her suffering may come to an end after free surgery by a Taiwanese specialist, who will alleviate the swelling by cutting away some of the lymphatic tissue in her legs.
Senior physician Hsu Wen-hsien (�?�), who will lead the operation on Monday, said he has never seen such an extreme case in his more than 30 years of experience.
“In the past cases, none of the patients have had two legs swelling to this size,” Hsu said.
Hsu, who has carried out 40 similar operations, 37 successfully, believes he can reduce the size of Wang’s legs by 35 percent immediately and 50 percent after rehabilitation work.
“It’s very likely the disease started when her veins were obstructed, and blood flowed to the lymphatic vessels, thus leading to swelling in the legs,” he said.
Wang traveled from Jiangsu Province for the operation thanks to Buddhist group Fo Kuang Shan, which learned of her plight through a newspaper report last year.
Her condition had baffled Chinese doctors at major hospitals in Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing and Zhengzhou, who were unable to help Wang.
“They said checkups showed her body was in normal condition,” said Wang’s mother, Cheng Yuxia (程玉霞), who accompanied her to Taiwan.
For Wang, elephantiasis has been a slowly developing condition that has gradually taken over her life.
“First it was my left leg, and then my right leg also got the same problem two years later,” she said. “Time and again I have been suffering fevers and muscular pains.”
Fo Kuang Shan is paying all travel and non-medical expenses, while the 10-hour operation and related care — estimated at US$16,500 — is being provided free by the hospital.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS