This is the extreme case of a mother’s love for her child.
This mother, dwelling way below the line of poverty, has been nursing her paralyzed son for more than half a century now and the best part: she has never complained about it, ever!
Gao Xuefeng’s son, who’s 51 now, was paralyzed by polio as an infant and the strong mother has been feeding, cleaning and massaging him every single day over all those years.
If that doesn’t sound like too much to you, she supports him every time he has to roll over and wipes his waste every time he defecates.
The devoted mother from Henan, Central China, says: “I gave birth to him, so I am willing to look after him no matter how hard it is.”
Gao, a mother of six, lives with her son Guo Desheng in a village named Qifang, a farmers’ colony, in Bo’ai county of China. Desheng is her fourth son and was born in 1968.
At the age of just three months, Desheng was diagnosed with a number of disorders.
He had hydrocephalus, a condition in which fluid builds up in the brain causing permanent tissue damage. Shortly after, he was diagnosed with polio, an acute viral infection.
Poliovirus can cause temporary or permanent paralysis in one out of 100 infected people and Desheng was that unlucky one.
When Desheng was young and the family lived together, his parents and siblings took turns nursing him.
As they grew up, Desheng’s brothers and sisters left their parental home and started their own lives. His parents kept taking care of him till 1998, when his father passed.
Since then, Gao is the sole caretaker of the paralyzed man.
The old lady, who is also a patient of chronic arthritis and hypertension, takes care of her son as well as the household chores.
She tries to stay home all the time so that she can be available if and when Desheng needs her.
Gao said her son could talk until 2012. He had a stroke in 2012 due to a blood clot in his brain and had to be rushed to the ER, where he remained hospitalized for a week.
It was when the doctors revealed Desheng won’t be able to speak anymore.
Speaking to Jiaozuo News in 2015, Gao said: “I cannot leave him behind. In the past, though life was hard, at least I had someone to talk to at home, but now I can only bear everything by myself.”
A long duration of continuous labor for her son has taken its toll on Gao’s health.
Gao told news website Pear: “My legs (are bent) because it is hard work looking after him every day. I need to use strength when I help him turn over.”
But then, the mother in her added: “I gave birth to him, so I am willing to look after him no matter how hard it is.”
The story of Gao and her son has been a source of inspiration and motivation for a lot of people.
Someone wrote on Chinese social media site Weibo: “She is an ordinary, but extraordinary mother.” Another user commented: “That’s the power of a mother’s love.”
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