“Xie Qihua, 35, can’t help weeping whenever she mentions her 4-year-old daughter Miaomiao. Like every mum, Xie thinks her daughter is beautiful. But she is heartbroken by others treating her like a freak. “People tease Miaomiao, call her names and say she is like a wild animal. It breaks my heart to see her treated in such a cruel way,” she sobs. The problem is the black hair-sprouting growths covering Miaomiao’s body, which doctors say if not treated will kill her. “When Miaomiao was 3-months-old, these black spots began appearing on her face, back, chest and arms. At first we thought they were birthmarks, but then they began to grow and hair began sprouting from each,” says distraught Xie from her home in the rural village of Anbian in the Sichuan province of southwest China. As the spots began to increase and grow in size, panic-stricken Xie and husband Chen took Miaomiao off to their local rural hospital. There doctors diagnosed the hairy patches as melanoma, a type of skin cancer.” w/ photos
