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shyscyberchamber.com
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FREAKS
:
The Devil Boy |
Date
Added
JUL 2003 |
It is difficult to imagine the depths of
suffering to which a two year old child can sink. Yet, when he
was rescued by a group of nuns in 1876, it was the first time in his
tortured little life that David Lopez had ever experienced expressions
of love.
His home, in a village deep in the Peruvian rain forests, was a wooden
cage through whose bars pitying adults would occasionally feed him
morsels of food before turning away in horror. His very survival
depended on such irregular acts of charity from a native community to
whom he was a living curse, or 'devil boy'; a human punishment meted
out to them by some hidden, potent force.
The reason behind their cruel, superstitious imprisonment of an infant
was simple, baby David was born without a face. He had no mouth
or upper jaw, no lips or nose. And, as time went by, it appeared
that his remaining features were being relentlessly eaten away.
Had he not been discovered by those travelling sisters of mercy, David
Lopez - a random name with which he was later christened - would
almost surely have faced a lonely, agonizing death.
Instead, he plays today with little boys of his own age, goes out
shopping with his adoptive mother, absorbs, bright as a button, all
that he is taught and enjoys a life a world away from the nightmare he
once knew. At the hands of a skilled and dedicated surgeon who
is literally rebuilding his face, David has emerged from his ordeal
into what is indeed a brave, new world.
The first glimmer of hope came when a social worker at the orphanage
in the Peruvian capital of Lima where David was first taken remembered
seeing a televised interview in which top Scottish surgeon Ian Jackson
spoke of the enormous challenge of correcting facial deformities in
children.
Cutting through a mountain of red tape, the orphanage managed to
organise a passport for David to travel to Britain and a visa for him
to stay in the country as long as he needed. Two airline
companies responded to an appeal by providing him with a free
first-class flight.
Ian Jackson, whose wife Marjorie and their four children immediately
agreed that David should live with them as a member of the family,
offered to perform a planned series of delicate operations completely
free of charge. An appeal fund organised by church officials and
local newspapers, to cover the cost of National Health Services
facilities for David's treatment at Canniesburn Hospital, near
Glasgow, raised more than £50,000. Despite seemingly
insurmountable difficulties, in little more than a year since he was
found cowering in his prison cage, David Lopez was on the verge of
being re-born.
To begin with, the prospect of surgery threw up alarming
complications. In an interview two years after he began work
rebuilding David's face, Ian Jackson said: 'I asked myself if David
knew whether he was being punished or helped because he was too young
to realize what was going on. He developed chest problems, so I
had to suspend the surgery for quite a while.
'Some day, David may curse me for not leaving him to his fate in the
jungle, but I just hope I am giving him a chance, giving him a face
that will be acceptable. he will have to take it from there.
David will never be considered handsome, but surgery can give him a
face that will allow him to lead a normal life. He has the
opportunity to develop and I think he will come out on top. he
is a bright, warm and intelligent little boy.
Initially, it was difficult to determine whether David's face had been
mauled by animals or if he had been the victim of a horrendous
disease. In fact, his disfigurement was the result of a rare
disease called Noma, a condition caused by malnutrition which usually
eats away at the corners of a victim's mouth. In David's case,
the disease had become more rampant, relentlessly devouring his jaws,
nose and upper lip. When found, he was unable to talk and
responded only to a few words of Spanish, the native tongue of the
South American Indians.
With the trusting, innocent love of a child, David soon accepted Ian
Jackson and his wife as 'mum and dad'. A Spanish-speaking tutor
was hired as he began to settle into what to him was the unknown world
of the family. But there was still the problem of the tiny girl
at the play school, who refused to play with 'the boy with the funny
face' and holidaymakers who took their children away from the beach
when David arrived to build sandcastles.
Said Ian Jackson: 'Children are straightforward and honest when
confronted with people who are disfigured. They make a casual
remark out of innocent curiosity but within five minutes they have
forgotten about it and accept the person. David knows he doesn't
look like other children. We have explained the matter to him
and now he is so accustomed to being regarded as normal that he
wonders why anyone bothers to remark on his face.'
On one occasion, the surgeon continued, David was in a sweet shop, and
heard the shop keeper remark about his 'terrible face' to a customer.
'David stood behind the counter, put his thumbs up to his ears and
started to waggle his fingers. He regarded it as a huge joke.
To him, waggling his fingers and poking out his tongue is really
pulling a terrible face. He's a tough independent little kid.
David stands up for himself and really considers himself to be a
member of our family. We treat him just like we treat our own
children. When he is naughty, he gets spanked, just like my own
son and daughters. David accepts that as natural, and that's the
way it should be. He gets his fair share of cuddling, and he
appreciates the fact that we don't hide him away. When the whole
family goes out shopping or on a picnic, he comes with us. We
have so forgotten about David's face that sometimes it takes a
moment's thought to understand why strangers are staring at him.'
David has already undergone dozens of operations in which the tops of
his ribs have been cut away and transplanted inside the fragile tissue
of his face to form his upper mouth and nose. And, in a series
of intricate skin graft operations, tissue has been transferred to his
face to cover his newly-built, man-made features. One day, that
gaping hole in the middle of his face will be gone forever.
Meanwhile, his home life too is being lovingly moulded. Marjorie
Jackson says: 'The family has taken David into its heart.
Everyone does if they take the trouble to get to know him. When
he first arrived, he couldn't, or didn't want to communicate at all.
David must have known from his earliest moments that he wasn't like
other children. Before we could win his trust he had to get over
whatever had happened to him in the jungle. Because of the
damage to his face he couldn't attempt to speak, but we soon realised
how quick and intelligent he was. We had a worrying time when he
first started school, but only one of the children reacted badly.
'He makes friends quickly among other children. It is only
grown-ups who present problems. I get very angry when adults
approach to tell me that I shouldn't allow him to be seen outside the
house because he is so ugly. They are the ugly ones. They
refuse to understand the needs of a boy like David. He can be
tough and boisterous and energetic at times. When he gets
together with our son Andrew the pair of them wrestle on the floor and
play rough games of football in the backyard.
'But we don't wrap him in cotton wool. All we try to do is make
sure he doesn't get any bruises or cuts which will hold back the
healing of his surgery.'
Surgery which is transforming the face of a dark-complexion,
piercingly dark-eyed little boy from a jungle prisoner into a happy,
affectionate fellow who can face the world with dignity, pride and a
fiercely independent courage born from love. |
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