A young man from northern Vietnam has struggled for years with a disfiguring and debilitating neoplastic condition.

Born a normal child, Nguyen Van Thuan, 27, from Hung Ha District in Thai Binh Province, has watched powerlessly as a lump grows on his face.

The tumor, which is the size of a small grapefruit, now covers a large part of his disfigured face and protruding eyes.

Thuan recalled that during his elementary school years, tears unusually kept dripping from his eyes.

The boy was taken for a checkup at a local hospital, where doctors failed to come up with a correct diagnosis. 

Thuan was later diagnosed with an osteoma of the facial and jaw bones by doctors at Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi.

He underwent surgery which failed due to profuse bleeding.

After the operation, the bony lump kept growing to its current size, preventing Thuan from doing labor-intensive chores.

The young man, who did not finish fifth grade, is currently sharing a rented room with another physically challenged person in Bac Ninh City, in the heart of Bac Ninh Province, where he peddles toothpicks to provide for himself and his three-year-old daughter back home.

He said that he married a woman some years ago and enjoyed brief nuptial bliss before his wife left him and their baby, who was only eight months old then.

Giang, a woman residing in Hanoi, has sought help for Thuan on Facebook.

She has her fingers crossed that the young man will get cured, just as a patient with the same burden was successfully operated on by a foreign doctor in Ho Chi Minh City.

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