There are some rare diseases in the world which all of a sudden comes like a bolt from the blue and befall those hopeful souls who live their lives with a multitude of colorful dreams. Such a hopeful soul was Dede Koswara from Indonesia, popularly known as ‘the tree man’.But the popularity thanks to the media age seldom cared about the plight pain, sorrow, and despair that a rare disease had brought into the life of this carpenter.
Dede suffered from Lewandowsky-Ltz Dysplasia, a disease which results in uncontrolled Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) infections and the growth of scaly warts resembling tree bark.with the affliction, he resigned from his active life and suffered many insults over years. His wife estranged him, on realizing that he could no longer feed her and their kids. Amidst all the negative treatments he received, in his mind, he always kindled a ray of hope. When the local people despised him saying that he had been cursed, Dede dreamed of a tomorrow when he could return back to his carpentry work.
Several documentaries on the strange condition of Dede were made which gave him ‘international notoriety’.The severity of the disease we can guess from the instance when in 2008 he had a surgery through which about 13lb of warts(approximately 6Kgs) was removed. That operation was a success in a sense that he could play Sudoku and wear flip-flops after that. But the growths continued and it became an inevitability to do two surgeries a year to keep the infections down.
Dede couldn’t use his hands, legs or even talk with the inception of this rare disease. Finally, death took his hapless soul when he breathed his last at a hospital in Bandung, Indonesia on January 30, 2016, at the age of 42. Though the doctors and health workers did their best to keep the man alive, he passed away battling the rare and incurable disease.
Dede after he had been inflicted with the disease, which made him stuck inside his home and made him mute, spend most of the time smoking cigarettes to pass time.
He died of a complicated series of health problems, including hepatitis, liver and gastric disorders.
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