A 62-year-old dubbed the ‘Bubble man’ because his body is covered in tumors has revealed how people treat him worse than a ‘dirty stray animal’.
Mohammad Umar started growing small lumps on his hands at 14, and since then his body has slowly been ravaged by benign tumors. Now, they cover his entire body.
‘I’m a good man,’ he said. ‘And I can work hard but my looks are a problem to other people. No one likes looking at me or being near me. It’s ruined my life.’
Umar, from Hyderabad, India, was born healthy. His mother had lumps on her hands but no where else. Without realising she had passed on a more agrressive disease. She died in 2001.
‘I was born with soft smooth skin,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise what they were when they started growing at 14 but then my mother noticed they were the same as her hands and took me to see a doctor.’
But as the years passed Umar’s condition progressively got worse. By the time he was 20 he had random lumps growing on numerous parts of his body.
He said: ‘I knew it was going to get worse. I knew it was a nightmare to come.’ The doctor told him he could pass it on to his children if he married.
He said: ‘The doctor said there were no guarantees but it was a possibility. I worried about it for years. I wondered whether I should ever marry.’
But then Umar met Farhat-un-Nisa, 45, fell in love and married when he was 28. Farhat did not care about Umar’s lumps back then.
She said: ‘I could sense Umar was a good man. He was kind and generous. My family warned me that the future could be difficult if his skin got worse. They even consulted a doctor on my behalf. But I took the risk.’
They went on to have children, and thankfully as they grew up they seemed unaffected. But as years passed Farhat could only watch as her husband become engulfed in huge itchy tumours.
She added: ‘I felt very helpless. Doctors said there was no cure for him. It changed him, he was once very happy but he became very insecure and scared. We struggled to live and raise our family.’
Meanwhile Umar lost his job as a luggage assistant at the local railway station. And no one would give him another job.
He said: ‘As the lumps grew bigger people stopped me carrying their luggage so my boss sacked me. I tried to find another job but people would just tell me to leave with a look of disgust on their face. It was humiliating.’
Umar has even struggled to rent a house. ‘Many landlords don’t want me living in their property. We’ve had to move many times. People think I will infect everything.’
In the end Farhat had to get a part time job in the local school to provide for the family.
Umar felt worthless as a man and husband, and as a father to his married daughter Shama, now 25, and sons Mohammad Hussain, 20, Mohammad Subani, 18 and Khaja, 12.
He said: ‘I hate my children seeing me like this. My sons should respect me but what kind of a father am I who can’t provide for his family?’
Umar has now resorted to occasional begging on the streets.
‘I walk around the city and wait for people to donate,’ he adds. ‘I either get people shouting at me and pushing me away or they give me money out of sympathy. It’s all I can do to help my family.
‘I hate showing myself to people, but if God as made me this way, it’s the only thing I can do to get some money.’
And to make matters worse his youngest son Khaja has recently shown signs of growing lumps – the first child in the family to inherit Umar’s condition.
‘I thought after three children I had been blessed, I was sure I couldn’t pass it on and I was so relieved,’ he explained.
‘But Khaja has some little lumps growing on his face and hands and legs and that’s how my began. I’m devastated.’
Dr Chilukuri Srinivas, a consultant oncologist, from Yashoda Hospital, in Hyderabad, believes Umar has the condition called Neurofibromatosis and there is no cure.
Home: Mohammad Umar, who lives in this house with his family, was sacked from his job because of his condition
‘It looks pretty obvious to me that he has a severe case of Neurofibromatosis,’ he said.
‘There is no known cure for this condition. And it’s a very uncomfortable condition to live with and I wish there was something I can do. But there is just nothing that can be done for him or his son.’
Thankfully, Umar is in no pain, but he finds the discomfort unbearable.
‘I sweat in the summer heat and it makes them itchy, so it’s hard to sleep at night and the lumps are growing so big around my eyes I can barely see,’ he said.
‘I try to keep myself tidy and presentable and my wife helps me shave and cut my hair but there’s not much I can do to hide these lumps, they grow and grow.
‘I don’t know what I’d do without my wife, she’s a blessing and I’m lucky to have her. I love my family very much.’ And Farhat said she has no regrets about marrying Umar.
‘I am very happy, I have no regrets,’ she said. ‘I sometimes find it hard to remember what my husband used to look like but he is here, with me now, and that’s all that matters.’
Info : News
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