14 DAY TRIAL // Dede, the Indonesian man from Java who has most of his arms and legs covered in gnarled warts, as well as a part of his body and face, still requires at least two surgeries per year, his doctor says, even if a previous operation in August removed some 13 pounds (6 kilograms) of warts from him. After returning home, in the remote village of Tanjung Jaya, his condition started to worsen, and he was forced to once again turn to others to help him accomplish even the simplest of tasks.
"Those (warts) that were removed are growing again and started to reappear after I returned home. I'm not desperate but I want to recover," Dede, who goes by just one name, told Reuters in an interview. Because his case gained such notoriety, he could afford to have the first surgeries, but constant interventions are required in order to tame the terrible disease, which again threatens to engulf a large part of his body.
The warts have been growing since childhood, when Dede fell down and cut his knee, first near his wound, and then all over his body, significantly decreasing his quality of life. An American doctor who treated him at one point said that his condition was caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV), which triggers warts. The disease was allowed to progress to such extent because Dede has a rare immune system deficiency, which allowed the virus to over-manifest.
"We have told him that his disease could not be 100 percent cured. In the previous operation, we only tried to increase his quality of life," explains Rachmat Dinata, one of the doctors who take care of Tree Man. He adds that the disease is not life-threatening, but that, if control surgeries are not performed regularly, Dede's body could be suffocated by the warts.
The man says that he would like to avoid having to perform in the circus again, as he did a while back, when he didn't have any money to take care of him and his two children, after his wife left him, and he was marginalized.