7-pound tumor removed from toddler

WELLINGTON, New Zealand, Oct. 29 (UPI) -- Doctors in New Zealand removed a tumor weighing more than 7 pounds from a 14-month-old boy from East Timor.

Specialists said that Alex Gonzaga, who weighed 24 pounds before the weekend surgery, would have been dead in six weeks without it, The Times of London reported.

The boy's tumor was first discovered by doctors in East Timor, and its size confirmed by those on a U.S. hospital ship.

Rotary Oceania Medical Aid for Children arranged for Alex and his mother, Elisa da Conceicao, to be flown to Wellington for the surgery.

The tumor was pressing down on Alex's internal organs. Bill Day, who coordinated the trip, said it was so large compared to his size that it was the equivalent of a full-grown woman about to give birth to full-size quintuplets.

Once the operation was over, Alex was happily playing with toys, Day said.

His mother said that she was looking forward to breast-feeding her son again and to seeing her four other children. She and her son are scheduled to leave the hospital and return home next week.