Some of you might remember a post I made a while back about a 32 year old guy named DeDe.  He lives in a remote village in Indonesia with his two children who he does his best to take care of.  He is a former fisherman who now suffers from a totally trippy skin condition that makes it look like he is literally turning into a tree.       I know it doesn’t sound possible, but heck yes, it is!!!

He has root like structures growing out of his body - branches that can grow up to 5cm a year and which protrude from his hands and feet, and welts covering his whole body.

The sad thing is that in an attempt to provide for his family, DeDe is now part of a circus show.     He’s in a “Freak Show”…which is just so sad to me. Doctors are totally baffled over this skin condition. I remember when I watched the special on DeDe last November, they mentioned that they thought they might have a cure for the condition. The fact that The Discovery Channel is advertising the special again tells me that he’s probably not cured.  

I’m not exactly sure why, but I’ve always been fascinated with weight issues. Whether it be a person who is anorexic and is very underweight or the opposite - a person who is obese.  I’m guessing that the fact that I’ve dealt with eating disorders throughout my life makes me much more curious about other people with the same issues.

I was watching a segment on Discovery Health last night. It was about a woman named Connie Jackson, and the title of the show was “The Shrinking Woman.” It’s a pretty fascinating story, really. In 2001, Connie’s weight was over 600 lbs. and she was home-bound. She suffered from sleep apnea, congestive heart failure, degenerative joint disease, uncontrolled hypertension, depression, hypothyroidism, and multiple female issues. She basically couldn’t take it anymore (mentally or physically), so she had Gastric Bypass surgery. Well, she lost over 400 lbs….which was great, but because she had been so big for so long, her skin was totally stretched to the max. The more weight she lost, the more her skin just kinda hung from her body. There was no elasticity left.

Connie decided to have a body lift. Basically like a face lift, but for the entire body. Pretty scary…a very, very risky procedure. Here is an excerpt from Connie’s site:

Post-surgically, my weight began to drop leaving me with buckets of sagging skin. My legs, arms, and stomach violently bounced every time I moved. I was so uncomfortable in my old skin, that doctors performed a “body lift” to remove a 23 pound sheet of skin -five feet long, ten inches thick.

That was the first of three or four surgeries she had in order to remove excess skin. I won’t go into further detail because I don’t want to spoil the story in case anyone out there wants to watch it. It really is a very interesting show…but just in case you’ve got a weak stomach, you should be prepared to see some very graphic video of surgeries.

HERE are the TV listings for the show in case anyone wants to watch it.