Most of our viewers should be familiar with the name Chris Bowman - he's the young Belize City man with a vascular tumor. Here at 7news we've followed his progress since 2005 - and so tonight it is with sadness that we report that Chris died around 7:00 last night.
We spoke to his devastated mother today - and looked back at his troubled medical history - which was always offset by his winning smile. Today though, for Odessa Orozco, there were no smiles, only tears:
Jules Vasquez Reporting:
Today is a day of intense grieving for Odessa Orozco - her son 24 year-old Chris Bowman died last night at the KHMH after being admitted to the hospital the day before with heart palpitations - she described his last moments:
Odessa Orozco - Mother of Chris Bowman
"I saw that they took the crash cart, and they were working on my little boy - on my king - so I was around and I didn't know what to do, and I was trying to get "Papa" - I was trying to call "Papa" several times, but it was busy. I called back my baby and told them to come back because Chris took a turn for the worst. Then, a Spanish lady who had come to pray for Chris saw me at the Hospital, and I told her about Chris. So I went back into the room, and they were still working on Chris. I didn't know what to do; I was confused, and I prayed to God, as usual, and I asked that he bring my son further, because he already brought him this far. I asked that he bring him further, because he doesn't deserve it. A doctor came and touched me; he shook his head. I asked they had gotten him back, and he said no, and I started to bawl. I want my son - I want him back. I went back to see my son, and I told him to go home with me, but he was gone, Jules. He was gone."
Chris died, it appears, from a vein that burst inside him.
He had been battling with a condition called haemangioma from he was 10 years old - when a tumor the size of a fist started to form.
He and his mother first came to us for help in October 2005 when he was 18. By that time he had developed a monstrous tumor that was smothering him:
Chris Bowman - Needed Surgery
"I would want this thing out of my chest right now because I have problems sleeping at night. I have to get up 12 o'clock to make this thing stop hurting me and sometimes when I cough it brings up stuff out of my mouth."
It took a while, but in 2009, he finally got real help when he was taken to Texas for surgery - where Doctors said it was the largest tumor of its kind they had ever seen.
They could not remove it - and Chris returned home - when we met him again in January of this year, he was walking with a cane - the tumor was now wrapping its tentacles around his spine, crippling him.
Chris Bowman
"This tumor is pressing on my spinal cord, its affecting my walking and so. I just came out of hospital before Christmas Eve because I nearly got paralyze, I can't even feel my feet, and my two feet bottom are hard all the way up to my hip."
By April, he had been confined to a wheelchair and got the opportunity to travel to Oklahoma for surgery.
Chris Bowman
"I'm telling you, God answered my prayers, I just feel go right now. I just feel good."
And he returned in May, improved, but not healed.
Chris Bowman
"To me it's going down slowly. It not going down fast, it is going down slowly because they took off one of my bad vein to stop it from growing into puberty so, as you can see, my chest looks different from ever I got through."
But he never made it for follow up treatment - and now his mother has lost the son she called her king - now she relies on his strength to stay up:
Odessa Orozco
"Chris showed me how to stay strong, and he showed me faith and other things. I told him, 'Papa, don't worry about anything; your mother is strong.' But I need to let it go, Jules. Yes, but the pain for me just begins, Jules. The pain to see that my son left me behind, it is just beginning for me; I don't know how I will recover from this. I don't know."
Funeral arrangements have not yet been finalized.
