Felicia Felix - Mentor

Felicia Felix-Mentor reportedly died in 1907, after a sudden illness of the type that Haitian belief finds to be characteristic of a person marked to be made into a zombie. In 1936, a woman (either nude or in ragged clothing, depending on the source) was found wandering the streets, and made her way to a farm which she claimed belonged to her father. The owners identified the woman as Felicia Felix-Mentor, long thought dead, and Felix-Mentor’s husband also confirmed this. Due to her poor health, she was sent to a government hospital. A doctor who interviewed her described her behavior:

Her occasional outbursts of laughter were devoid of emotion, and very frequently she spoke of herself in either the first or the third person without any sense of discrimination. She had lost all sense of time and was quite indifferent to the world of things around her.

BEST FRIEND FOREVER

A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.
Arnold Glasow
What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
Aristotle

A true friend reaches for your hand and touches your heart.
Heather Pryor

Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.
Author Unknown

Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty.
Sicilian Proverb

If all my friends were to jump off a bridge, I wouldn't jump with them, I would be at the bottom to catch them.
Author Unknown

True friendship is like sound health, the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.
Charles Caleb Colton

Together forever, never apart. Maybe in distance, but never in heart.
Author Unknown

If I had one gift that I could give you, my friend, it would be the ability to see yourself as others see you, because only then would you know how extremely special you are.
B.A. Billingsly

A true friend is someone who knows there's something wrong even when you have the biggest smile on your face.
Author Unknown

There is nothing on this earth to be prized more than true friendship.
St. Thomas Aquinas

Thumbelina the world's smallest horse

She may be small, a mere 17 inches and weighing only 60 pounds. But she is all horse. Born as a dwarf to a miniature horse, Thumbelina is officially the world’s smallest horse. She may never aspire to be a champion show-jumper – she is so tiny she would find it hard to jump over a bucket. But these things matter little to the feisty Thumbelina, who has been officially recognized as the world’s smallest horse. That title was conferred on her in 2006 when the five-year-old entered the Guinness Book of Records. The real-life My Little Pony was born on an American farm to a couple who specialize in breeding miniature horses. Normally these horses weight about 250lb and rise to a height of 34 inches when they are fully grown. But from the day she was born it was clear that tiny Thumbelina would never grow to that size. She weighed in at only 8lb – the size of a new-born baby - when she was born. Eventually she grew to just 60lb. Her amazing size has been explained as dwarfism. This makes her a miniature of a miniature. She may be a mini-horse, but small means beautiful as far as her owners, the Goessling family in Goose Creek farm in St. Louis, are concerned. She likes to hang out with the cocker spaniels rather than the other horses on their 150-acre farm. “When she was born, she was so small we thought she wasn’t going to make it. She looked very ill. We feared the worse. “Because her legs are proportionally smaller than her body and her head, she has to wear orthopaedic fittings to straighten them out a lot of the time. “But we love her and wouldn’t want her any other way,” said Michael Goessling, whose parents Kay and Paul bred the miniature horses. She only measures up to the shins of the normal-sized horses in the paddock. Michael’s parents have bred hundreds of miniature horses, but they have never had one as small as Thumbelina. She has become something of a celebrity in her home town in America. She lives on a cup of grain and a handful of hay, served twice a day. She is expected to live to the age of 17 years because of her size – normal horses live for about 35 years. “She was just a complete fluke and we call her a mini mini. She is too precious to sell. I think my parents would sell me before they part with Thumbelina. She has that special Wow factor, which you only get when you see how small she really is,” said Michael. While she has the ability to get pregnant and give birth, the Goessling family have decided not to allow this to happen. There could be complications during the pregnancy, they believe, so it is better to avoid the risks. And also they don‘t feel it is right that the gene which creates dwarfism in horses be carried on through future generations.

Yoda - the cat with four ears

Yoda - the cat with four ears

Meet Yoda, a household pet born with an extra pair of ears. Chicago, Illinois, couple Valerie and Ted Rock took the cat in two years ago after they visited a local bar, where a group of drinkers were handing the animal around and making fun of him. Since being adopted by the Rocks and after getting his picture posted on the Internet, the two-year-old feline has become an international media celebrity. The Rocks have received calls from Good Morning America, Fox News and The Tyra Banks Show. The moggy's mugshot has graced the pages of the London Guardian and British tabloids. Despite his strange appearance, Yoda - named after the pointy-eared Star Wars character (pictured below) - is a perfectly normal and affectionate cat and a delight to have around. His extra ears are thought to be the result of a genetic mutation. But Yoda's owners are keeping a close watch on their much-loved pet. They are concerned he could be catnapped because he is so different. - Aug 31, 2008

Tree Man who grew 'roots' offered hope of new life by doctor

                        Above: Dr Anthony Gaspari believes that he has diagnosed Dede's rare condition. Below: Dede with his teenage daughter. He fears that his children may also become infected


An Indonesian fisherman who is "half man half tree" has been offered new hope of recovery by an American doctor - and Vitamin A.

32-year-old Dede, who lives in a remote village in Indonesia with his two children, feared that he would be killed by the tree-like growths that cover his body.

Known locally as 'Tree Man' his condition has baffled local doctors for 20 years.

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.

In an attempt to earn a living to support his family, he is part of a circus troupe, displaying his Tree Man limbs along with others afflicted with skin deformities in 'freak' shows.

The former fisherman was the subject of a documentary "Half Man Half Tree", part of the "My Shocking Story" series on Discovery Channel TV.

Dede's story began when wart-like "roots" started growing out of his arms and feet after he cut his knee in a teenage accident. The medical world was completely baffled.

The welts spread rapidly across his body and soon he was not able to carry out ordinary household tasks.

Dede was sacked from his job and deserted by his wife. He has been raising two children, now in their late teens, in poverty. He is resigned to the fact that local doctors have no cure for his condition.

To try to support his family he even joined a local "freak show", parading in front of a paying audience along with victims of other peculiar diseases.

While he has the support of his extended family, he has frequently been a target of ridicule and abuse in rural fishing village where he lives.

But now new hope has emerged for Dede after an American dermatology expert flew out to his home village south of the capital Jakarta.

Dr. Anthony Gaspari of the University of Maryland claims to have identified Dede's condition, and has proposed a treatment that could completely change his life.

Following the testing of samples of the lesions and Dede's blood, Dr. Gaspari says his condition is caused by the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). This is a fairly common infection that usually causes small warts to develop on sufferers.

Dede's problem is that he has a rare genetic fault that impedes his immune system. This means his body is unable to contain the warts.

According to Dr. Gaspari, the virus was able to "hijack the cellular machinery of his skin cells", instructing them to produce huge amounts of the substance that caused the tree-like growths known as "cutaneous horns" on both his hands and feet.

The doctor became involved in the case through the Discovery Channel documentary, and he is convinced that Dede's condition can be largely cleared up by a daily doses of a synthetic form of Vitamin A, which has been demonstrated to stop the growth of warts in severe cases of HPV.

Dr. Gaspari said that Dede's warts should reduce in size to the point where he can use his hands. He said he had never seen anything like this in his entire career.

- December 24, 2007.

                          
             

The man with no face - medical science offers new hope to face-eating tumor man

A victim of horrific facial disfigurement - known as "the man with no face" - has been given new hope by the advancement of medical science.

Jose Mestre, from Lisbon, Portugal, has been losing his face to a huge growth for the past 35 years, distorting it out of all recognition - and it's still growing.

The tumor on 51-year-old Jose's face is a collection of blood vessels that have expanded, producing a raised red area on the skin.

Jose was born with a strawberry-coloured birthmark on his upper lip. At puberty it began growing, eventually smothering his lips, nose and one of his eyes. Now it is 33cm long and weighs 3kg.

But Jose's religious faith - as a Jehovah's Witness he refuses to accept a blood transfusion - has prevented him from having surgery to remove the growth.

Jose's rare condition was the subject of a Discovery Channel TV documentary 'The Man With No Face', part of the 'My Shocking Story' series.

It reveals how top medical experts in London have now held out hope of helping Jose, a well-known figure around the streets of Lisbon.

A leading British surgeon has offered to treat Jose using ultrasound waves to coagulate the blood before the operation.

This should remove the risk of heavy bleeding - satisfying his religious beliefs about blood transfusions in the process.

Dr Iain Hutchison, of St Bartholomew's in London, is confident an operation with a harmonic scalpel could make him look a lot more normal.

Discovery Channel said: "Surrounded by a loving family, it seems incredible that he has not been treated and his face was allowed to grow so big. However, through years of medical misinformation, some misdiagnosis, lack of finances, and reluctance to undergo treatment due to religious beliefs, the growth has continued to obliterate his face."

My Shocking Story follows Jose on a journey through Europe to seek medical advice for one last chance to stop his face from suffocating him.

In this journey of a lifetime he travels by train, via Paris, to Britain, to meet the top experts in London. He goes through a series of tests, consultations, and meets other patients with a similar affliction. In London he also spends time with his sister Guida and the rest of his family, enjoys being a tourist in London, while making the biggest decision of his life.

Jose's dream is to live a long and normal life. Following the showing of the Discovery documentary he continues to adhere to his 'no blood transfusion' religious principles. But he has agreed to go back to the London hospital in 2008, when doctors hope to carry out specialist surgery to begin removing parts of his tumor, without the need for blood transfusions.

- December 24, 2007.

                      Above: Jose Mestre and his sister Guida in London. Pictures below show Jose aged 14 when the tumor was still small, and as he is now.