The 8-year-old boy Di Zhou suffered from aplastic anemia (hereinafter referred to as “aplastic anemia”). He was bedridden for 8 years, and now he can only write his name. He is separated from the world by aplastic anemia, and he has never left the village except to see a doctor.
8-year-old boy was bedridden with aplastic anemia for 8 years
In Sujia Village, Jijia Town, Leizhou City, Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province, many villagers have built small western-style buildings. But beside the big tree in the village, there is an earthen house built of yellow mud that is incompatible with the beautiful and atmospheric houses around it.
The walls of the house are made of soil, and the surface is uneven. Half of the walls of the small courtyard are made of red bricks, like building blocks. Even the yellow mud None were mushy. The roof is covered with wooden boards and thatch, and in order to prevent rain from leaking, the thatch is also tied with black plastic sheeting.
The light rain can barely block it. If it encounters a typhoon and rainy day on Leizhou Island, it often rains heavily outside and light rain inside the house.
This is the home of Zhou Di, the aplastic boy.
At 8 in the morning, Brother Zhou woke up from the bed and looked up to see a hemp rope across the roof beam. The family can’t afford a wardrobe, and the washed clothes are put on this hemp rope one by one. In Jin Yong’s novel “The Condor Heroes”, a rope was the bed of the little dragon girl, and now this rope is the boy’s wardrobe.
As long as he doesn’t get sick, he looks like an ordinary farm boy. After getting out of bed, he stood up on the uneven floor with bare feet and flip-flops on. After washing and eating breakfast, he lay back on the bed, and occasionally sat up for a while, but within ten minutes he lay down again. Go down, because sitting for a long time will make you feel tired.
He can’t run, do strenuous exercise, go to crowded places to prevent infection, and can’t play around like other friends of the same age.
His exposed ankles and calf were dotted with tiny red spots, like mosquito bites. There are also a few small red dots on the arms.
This little red spot, also called a “bleeding spot,” is a marker unique to patients with aplastic anemia.
It is like a barometer of Zhou Di’s condition. When the little red dots appear more and more and become more and more obvious, parents know that Zhou Di’s thrombocytopenia is worsening. Now, maybe a blood transfusion or platelets is needed.
The 16-year-old boy was originally a rebellious age, but Zhou Di did not have stars in his eyes, nor the resentment and depression of being bedridden for a long time, but he had a plain and casual nature beyond his age. Just like the Buddhist teenagers sung in pop songs, he doesn’t care about anything.
In a forum for aplastic anemia, the most liked post said: “Whatever fate gives you, you must follow.”
Zhou brother is illiterate, let alone surfing the Internet. But like these patients, his life creed is two words – accept your fate!
“If my hair were money
I would like to pluck the light one by one to heal him”
One day eight years ago, Di Zhou’s father noticed a blood blister on his son’s lips, a bleeding nose, and several bruised patches on his ankle. His father disagreed, thinking it was because he fell and fell while playing, so he only took him to a small clinic in the town for treatment. The village doctor prescribed some medicine for bruises and sprains, and after rubbing it for several weeks, there was no improvement. Four months later, the bruises and plaques on the ankles became more and more, and slowly spread to the thighs. There were bruises everywhere on the body, and the skin all over the body turned yellow, and I often felt headaches.
Zhou Di’s father panicked and took him to Leizhou People’s Hospital to see a doctor. He found that the platelet count was very low (8×109/L). The doctor said it was very serious and asked them to transfer to a large hospital. . Later, he was transferred to the Affiliated Hospital of Guangdong Medical College in Zhanjiang City. After bone marrow was extracted, it was diagnosed as aplastic anemia.
(Brother Zhou and Father)
This peasant who has never traveled far in his life was stunned — the seven words “aplastic anemia”, he couldn’t even pronounce it correctly at first, and he couldn’t even understand what the disease was.
The simple farmer gave birth to six children, Zhou’s brother was the eldest, and his grandparents lived with them. Long before his brother Zhou fell ill, he was diagnosed with the three yang of hepatitis B, and he could not do heavy work. After his brother Zhou fell ill, the farmer took all the money to treat his son, and his illness was long forgotten. back.
Now, he can only do some household chores and cannot go out to work. If the work is a little tiring, and the urine is particularly yellow, he can only drink the homemade earth tea to “top it up”.
Zhou Di’s mother is said to be anemic, but this frail peasant woman is the only labor force for the family of ten.
On weekdays, when the farming is busy, she helps the villagers to chop sugar cane in exchange for the living expenses of a large family. If she is lucky and has a lot of farm work, she can earn more than 1,000 yuan per month.
After Zhou Di fell ill, the family sold the only valuable land for more than 10,000 yuan and repaid the loan of more than 30,000 yuan. Eight years later, the loan has not been paid yet. Relatives and friends, cousins, and Zhou’s father all went to borrow money one by one. But everything that can be borrowed, loaned, and sold has been used, and it is still not enough.
Zhou Di’s aplastic anemia needs to be controlled by cyclosporine. This medicine takes 12 capsules a day, a box can only be eaten for 4 days, and this box of medicine costs more than 400 yuan. Even if there is a rural subsistence allowance reimbursement, Zhou Di’s parents have to pay half of it.
The bigger cost is blood transfusion. In about 10 days, Zhou Di will have to lose two bags of blood and one bag of platelets, one bag of blood 400 yuan, and one bag of platelets 1,600 yuan. This kind of treatment continues. more than a year.
Speaking of this, Di Zhou’s mother said with tears in her eyes: “If my hair can be exchanged for money, I would rather pluck each of them out and exchange the money for Di Zhou. cure.”
Isolated Teen
I saw light in the love of my family
Zhou Di’s world is this bed and small courtyard. There is no Internet, no computer, and no TV at home. The family follows the most primitive way of life: working at sunrise and sunset. And rest. The only communication tool for the whole family is Zhou Di’s father’s mobile phone, but he never lets the children play, for fear of affecting the children’s schoolwork.
Occasionally, when Zhou is still feeling well, he will go out of the house and go around the village, but he will come back soon, because he will be very tired after walking for a long time, and he is also prone to dizziness and fainting. . Apart from going to see a doctor, he has never been out of Sujia Village again.
When he was sick at the age of 8, he was in the first grade of elementary school and could only write his own name. After he became ill, he dropped out of school, and the little friends he knew when he was studying came back at the beginning. Look at him, and then gradually cut off contact with him because of his studies, and now he has no friends.
Usually bedridden at home, he can’t read, because he is illiterate and has no entertainment. He just lays or sits on the bed every day and stares at the roof made of thatched plastic sheeting, and that’s it. In his daze day by day, eight years passed by.
Zhou Di’s five younger siblings also play with him when they come home from school, but they don’t touch him or dare to touch him. They all understood that Big Brother’s disease was “untouchable, untouchable”. Fortunately, they were all healthy and did not suffer from the same disease as Zhou’s brother.
Among Brother Zhou’s brothers and sisters, the 12-year-old sister has the best academic performance. The mud walls of the house are covered with awards of various sizes, all of which are obtained by the little girl with excellent academic performance. Yes, even the four antimony buckets at home are the rewards she has won for four consecutive times when she has scored more than 90 points in three subjects.
(Brother Zhou with family)
Chou’s room turned left and turned to the kitchen. The stove was just two bricks, and the mud walls on all four sides were blackened by firewood. Four or five pots that were blackened by the fire were neatly placed on the ground, and even the firewood was neatly bundled and placed on the right side of the stove.
Although the house is dilapidated, it was cleaned by Zhou’s mother. There is no scrap of paper or garbage in the corners of the house, and there is no mold or unpleasant odor. . Zhou’s mother used her own way to retain the last trace of dignity and decency for the farm family, who had been tortured by poverty and illness for eight years.
As night came, the kitchen was dimly lit. Zhou Di’s mother was cooking for the family. There was a piece of fat pork belly on the round table in the kitchen, because today was the beginning of the lunar calendar. First, the villagers made offerings to the gods. Some kind people gave this offering, pork belly, to Zhou Di’s grandfather. The last time the family ate pork was two months ago.
As for the future, Brother Zhou said that he has no expectations, let alone any extravagances – he said that his only wish is to be “healthy”.
Yes, 1,000 yuan may be just a concert ticket and a pair of brand-name sneakers for Zhou Di’s peers. But they didn’t know that the 1,000 yuan was equivalent to life-saving money for Zhou’s family of ten, who were far away on the Leizhou Peninsula, to maintain their basic living.
The aplastic boy who can only write his own name can only use his indifference and indifference to confront the impermanence and helplessness of life.
Life may not give each of us a healthy ordinary person, but it is the extravagant hope of the Zhou brothers.
2020 has come, let us be grateful and pray that in the new year, every “young you” can have a healthy body.
Reviewer: Li Yanchen| Deputy Chief Physician, Department of Hematology, Beijing Chaoyang Hospital Affiliated to Capital Medical University
*The pictures and videos in this article were taken from the author’s field interviews.
*The content of this article is for the popularization of health knowledge and cannot be used as a specific diagnosis and treatment suggestion, nor can it replace the face-to-face consultation of a licensed physician, and is for reference only.
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