“My father was the only one who cared for me”: a tumor disfigured his face and his mother abandoned him, but thanks to his dad, today he says he feels “like a new man”

Kambou Sie was 10 years old when a tumor appeared on his face.

He lived in Ivory Coast, and what doctors called Burkitt lymphoma kept growing for 7 years. It blocked his vision, took away some of his sense of smell, and its weight damaged his spine. No one in his community understood what was wrong with him, so almost everyone avoided him for fear it might be contagious. Even his mother had given up on him: “She said this would never be cured, so she stopped worrying about me”, he said. Only his father stayed by his side.

In 2016, his desperate father wrote to the Liliane Foundation, which sent photos and videos to a hospital in Italy. Kambou arrived in November 2017, and after six months of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and a stem cell transplant, the tumor shrank to well below its original size. Then came three facial surgeries to repair the damaged bone.

He still needs more operations, but he already has plans: to return to Bondoukou, go back to school, and perhaps get a girlfriend.