Here’s a horrible story: a man who bears a grossly disfiguring tumor on his face, one that threatens his life and has afflicted him since adolescence, is only now considering surgery to correct the problem.
Why not before? Because it might require (and now definitely would require) blood transfusions. And he’s a Jehovah’s Witness. You have to wonder what wretched, evil excuse for a human being among his church associates has been telling him that he shouldn’t get this life-saving surgery because God wouldn’t like it.
Big sky daddy truly loves him. Look at how he is being tested. Yet his faith endures.
sigh…
FUCKING CHRIST. “Grossly disfiguring” doesn’t even BEGIN to cover it. I didn’t think there was much left on the Web that could shock me, but that and the “tree man” linked from the same page? Brrrrr…
Also, as he’s not a churchgoer, I suspect there might be an emotional issue or two mixed in with the “God doesn’t want me to” bit. Poor guy’s probably got social phobias like nobody’s business.
God must be already pissed off at him to give him such an affliction, and now he wants to risk even worse by defying God and removing it? I can’t imagine what God would do to him then…
(And yes, that photo truly is horrific, and it is truly a profoundly sad story.)
If they are Jehovah’s Witnesses, ALL of them
But… but… I thought religion comforted people and made their lives better.
I’m reminded of a line from The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell: a group of American soldiers encounter a young Iraqi girl with (I think) Down’s Syndrome, and one of them says to her, “Jesus. Retarded and an Iraqi. God must really hate you, little girl.”
Amazing. How different this man’s life would be if his hemangioma had been treated when it was small. Heck, it wouldn’t even have required a blood transfusion.
The tumor probably wants the boy removed.
Surely Jehovah’s witnesses have conjoined twins and kids with facial deformities. I guess their big secret thrill is seeing other people suffer.
I think the only positive part of the linked article is that there is a method to reduce bleeding during surgery, which is something that should benefit all patients, not just Jehova’s Morons.
“But now one of Britain’s leading facial surgeons has proposed treating Jose, 51, by employing ultrasound waves to coagulate the blood before the operation. This should allow his growths to be removed without risk of heavy bleeding – satisfying his religious prohibition on blood transfusions that has so far hampered his search for treatment.”
If we were to follow the religious conservatives’ logic regarding the embryonic stem cell breakthrough, that doctors may now have a way around this bizarre restriction “vindicates” the belief.
Clearly he’s not praying hard enough.
Oh, I know, send him to Benny Hinn. He’s got the power of God and can cure him….
Too true BigDumbChimp. Having been raised as a JW, I’ve seen this happen on more than one occasion. Everyone rallies around them, reinforcing the “whatever it takes, just don’t do it” line.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are thoroughly brainwashed into not submitting to a transfusion under ANY circumstances, under threat of disfellowshipping and larger existential ramifications.
They are taught to rip the cables from their bodies and trash the medical equipment if that’s what it takes.
Sad, sad, despicable cult.
I’ve known of two cases personally where people have sought out treatment only to change their minds due to church and familial pressures. There was no guaruntee that the interventions would work in these cases but the prognoses were much better than letting things proceed without intervention. In both instances the individual died within a year. What a horrible waste.
What does he eat? Looks like a Pak’ma’ra.
— CV
That’s my childhood PZ! I can still remember my mother getting baptized and “deserting” her family for god. After my 8th birthday nothing I did mattered anymore unless it was directly related to activities at the kingdom hall. We did nothing other than what she wanted. I loved my father, but never really forgave him for getting a night job and – as the oldest sibling – basically leaving me alone with mommy dearest. My teenage years were an inquisition because I wouldn’t/couldn’t swallow her bizarre “koolaid”. The truly tragic part is that now mom has senior dementia/Alzheimer’s and has mostly forgotten what she “believes”; she’s a really sweet old lady. 50 years of dedication to the cult, and the members of her congregation don’t come around anymore either, except for one lovely woman who would come regardless of her belief system. I’ve done alright, but I can’t help but wonder what I could have accomplished with just a little encouragement.
In one of the photos, it almost looks like the man’s being eaten by an octopus.
What a horrific waste of a lifetime. Let’s hope the surgery works out well and he can start a normal life.
I agree with #2–I’m pretty callous about things, but this is nauseating.
Fuck Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Fuck Christianity.
Fuck religion.
He looks like he ought to be swimming out to Devil’s Reef with Old Man Marsh adn the rest of the Innsmouth folk.
On another board, I pointed out that this is a prime example of the harm that religious delusion causes people. This was met with the usual “we shouldn’t disparage other people’s religious beliefs” nonsense, notwithstanding that it is precisely because of this man’s JW faith that he has refused treatment for his growths to the point that his life is in danger.
the world would be a better place if we could just ban this bizzaro cult…
Exterminating whole groups of people is a Very Bad Thing, but if I found that cephalopod demons had, in the night, slithered ashore and committed blasphemous violation on the immortal soul of every single adult Jehovah’s Witness, I would not shed a tear. May they die screaming as a prelude of what’s to come.
add this to the babies orphaned because their mothers wont have blood transfusions after troubled births, and the scientologists slaughtered by their mentally ill daughter because they denied her medication or may gay friend who had three years of electric shock therapy because god told him too so he could be straight. it makes me soooo angry i could never stop screaming.
Good god! I recently had a small Haemangioma removed from my chest, it took about 5 minutes with a local anaesthetic and I barely bled in the slightest. I appreciate that his was in a far more difficult location and that it was 40 years ago but I still struggle to believe something couldn’t have been done about it early on.
It’s not merely disfiguring. This poor sod is eventually going to get smothered if he doesn’t get competent medical help. It’s a hell of a way to win a Darwin award.
-jcr
There was an interesting storyline in “The Practice” some years back in which one of the office staff was in a coma and also needed medical treatment which required a blood transfusion. As she was a JW, her mother refused the treatment in her name, and the lawyers tried to get themselves named as her guardians to circumvent her. Brought up all kinds of interesting issues about personal autonomy (even when making really stupid decisions) and who gets to make these kind of decisions in the absence of clear evidence of the patient’s wishes. I think it predated the Terry Schivao debacle, but am not sure. I’m sorry to say I don’t remember the resolution (or maybe I missed the episode when it got resolved). I seem to remember that the character didn’t die, though.
Thanks again for not putting a photo right in the article. I have an actual phobia about disfigurements, and running into something like this probably would have done me in for the week. I read your blog each day, and appreciate folks who care enough to LINK.
I feel really sorry for this guy. As much as I despise the religious philosophy that kept him from surgery, I’m sickened by the way some people in this comment section have turned their anger and cruelty toward the victim. At a young age, he was a victim of a disfiguring ailment, and of the religious beliefs his mother forced on him. It’s enough to make you want to cry.
I’ve taught students who were JW. They were the best students in the class, both academically and behaviorally. Their parents made sure to tell us that, since we weren’t familiar with their medical restrictions, if anything should happen, we were not to give them any type of first aid. Instead, we were to call mom, who would call dad, who would tell mom what to do, who would call us back and tell us what to do or come get the kid. At which point I thought, “I’m going to give the same first aid to every kid, damn the religious fanaticism.” Fortunately, I never had to face that situation, but how crazy!
This is a grown adult we’re talking about. Regardless of how he came to acquire it and regardless of the fact that he deserves our sympathy for his ailment, persisting in adherin to such an insane and destructive belief system as an adult is evidence of very poor judgement.
Funny how those who believe so ferverently in the purity of God’s creation so blithely ignore – no, militantly deny and suppress – some of the finest and most useful characteristics of that creation: ingenuity, resourcefulness, compassion, and the indomitable will to survive.
Not to dismiss the malevolent influence of superstition here, but from the article, it seems that being a JW isn’t the only reason he hasn’t been treated, and it doesn’t sound like anyone (living) is reinforcing his JW beliefs:
Also, PZ, you said “Because it might require (and now definitely would require) blood transfusions.” But the article says:
Yoyo #23 raised an interesting and timely point. A few weeks ago a woman in England died after a difficult twin childbirth for the same reason: she wouldn’t have a transfusion. Now her stupidity and selfishness have left two little babies without a mother.
I had to think of all the hoops that people were jumping through when it came to “saving” Terri Schiavo, but this nonsense gets a pass because of its religeous base.
Steve
Quit yer bitchin’ an’ track those memes to kill them. Stomp memes, not people!
Orthodox Jews read the same texts & willingly pay for a bearded butcher to do the prep work. Perhaps the JWs should read the midrash on the text.
Well, I guess it’s time to log in. I’ve been reading this blog for a while, and have enjoyed it immensely. I am also a recovered Jehovah’s Witness. After 35 years as a devout one, five years as a fader, and six more as an orthodox fundamentalist athiest, I am now free.
The JW blood prohibition has left a wreckage of lives and families, much like their prehistoric policy of disfellowshipping (shunning). I know a few victims, myself.
The ultimate monument to their murder is the cover of a 1994 “Awake” magazine that showcases 26 child victims of the policy. They attempted to shore up morale by cannonizing a few martyrs.
What many people don’t know, is that there is an underground group (AJWRB) that lives on the internet, trying to get the policy changed. The Watchtower Society hunts them down and disfellowships them.
SUMMARIES OF 600 JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES LAWSUITS & COURT CASES
The following website summarizes over 315 U.S. court cases and lawsuits affecting children of Jehovah’s Witness Parents, including 200+ cases where the JW Parents refused to consent to life-saving blood transfusions for their dying children:
DIVORCE, BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS, AND OTHER LEGAL ISSUES AFFECTING CHILDREN OF JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES
http://jwdivorces.bravehost.com
The following website summarizes over 285 lawsuits involving Jehovah’s Witnesses, including cases involving JW Employees who were injured while working and then died because they refused life-saving blood transfusions:
EMPLOYMENT ISSUES UNIQUE TO JEHOVAH’S WITNESS EMPLOYEES
http://jwemployees.bravehost.com
I lived in Lisbon in the early 1990s and saw this poor man on a few occasions.
The reasons why this man did not get treated before now are far more complex than the articles that have been written this week indicate:
— the tumours started to affect him badly during his adolescence (the early 1970s). Portugal, at that time, was a very poor fascist dictatorship where people with disabilities and disfigurements were generally shunned and received very little medical treatment. Only the wealthy or the powerful (from the top industrial, religious or military families) got access to proper medical care and there was a complete absence of human rights in any modern sense;
— therefore, he almost certainly developed an even more strong sense of fatalism and hopelessness than many other Portuguese at the time. A lot of people fell back on religion as a way of coping with and making sense of their lives;
— for many years after the revolution in 1974, medical advances were still slow in Portugal. At that time, medical technology would almost certainly not have been advanced enough to have treated his (by then far worse condition) properly.
He has really known no other life since his teens other than as a person who would sit (and sometimes beg) in Praca do Rossio in Lisbon and is utterly conditioned to this awful existence. What might have originally been a coping mechanism – namely his religion, inherited from his mother – has now become part of a psychological resistance to dealing with this awful problem. He apparently is not even sure whether he will go ahead with having an operation which does not require a blood transfusion.
Apparently, his siblings (who do not share his religious beliefs) have tried for years to help him.
there are clearly enormous and complex health and mental health problems mixed up in this truly sad case.
I hope that he does get treated, survives and manages to have some kind of happiness during the rest of his life.