The tumor was as big as a tennis ball on the boy’s face. Photo: Caters News Agency

Daeima’s parents then brought him to the hospital for testing and treatment at Jinnah Hospital, Karachi, 208 km from home. The boy’s father Jayram told Dailymail, “The tumor kept growing. It almost completely covered one of my son’s eyes.”

Because the boy was too young, the doctors could not operate. Photo: Caters News Agency

At the hospital, doctors said Daeima had Encephalocele (a condition in which the brain protrudes beyond the skull), a rare form of neural tube defect. Because the baby is so young, the doctors said that they must do tests to ensure health and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) before surgery. Currently, the boy has to eat a special diet under the direction of doctors. However, this will delay treatment, so the child’s parents are concerned that the tumor will make their only son blind, according to Vnexpress.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Encephalocele is a rare birth defect in the neural tube that affects the brain, usually diagnosed before birth. Usually, this deformity is treated with orthopedic surgery to return the brain outside the skull to the correct position and then close the opening. This can be done without causing any disability, even with large tumours.