14 DAY TRIAL // Surgeons in the city of Beijing in China are expected to soon operate on a 15-year-old boy and shorten his abnormally long neck. Should the intervention prove successful, the teenager will finally get to lead a normal life.
Local media reports say that the boy, named Fu Wengui, was born with this bizarrely long neck. Doctors who have had the chance to examine him say that this anatomical quirk is due to the fact that he has more vertebrae than what is considered normal.
More precisely, it appears that Fu Wengui's neck accommodates for as many as 10 vertebrae. By comparison, regular folks have only 7 vertebrae in their necks, specialists further explain.
According to the teenager's father, 50-year-old Fu Genyou, the boy does not want doctors to do their best to shorten his neck simply because he wants to look normal and fit in. On the contrary, he needs this surgery for medical reasons.
Thus, it appears that, because of his unusually long neck, this 15-year-old often experiences excruciating pain, especially when he attempts to walk. This happens because the extra vertebrae toy with his nerves, Daily Mail informs.
“While the standard number of vertebrae in the neck is 7, he has 10. These vertebrae press on the nerves in his neck and make it difficult for him to walk,” the teenager's father explained in an interview. “He always causes a stir whenever he goes out,” he added.
In case anyone was wondering, having doctors operate on you to shorten your neck and make you look normal does not come cheap. In fact, 15-year-old Fu Wengui would be a long way from receiving treatment for his condition, had it not been for a local charity that volunteered to pay for the procedure.
Presently, specialists at Chaoyang Hospital are busy carrying out tests. They expect that these investigations will help them settle on the best course of treatment. Fu Wengui, on the other hand, just wants the entire affair to be over as soon as possible. “I just hope I can have a normal neck,” he said.
Apart from the fact that he has an abnormally long neck, this teenager suffers from several other medical conditions. Thus, his chest frame is improperly shaped and, at the age of 6, he was diagnosed with a spinal deformity known to the scientific community as congenital scoliosis.
By the looks of it, doctors cannot do anything to treat these other health problems. Hopefully, they will at least manage to give 15-year-old Fu Wengui a more normal-looking neck. For now, it is still unclear when exactly they will operate on him.