A 3-year-old girl from Phoenix, Arizona has been diagnosed with epidermolysis bullosa simplex, a rare genetic condition that means her skin blisters at the slightest touch.
Lizzy Hedrickson’s skin is reportedly as fragile as an insect’s wing because of this infliction, which is known as butterfly disease.
Heartbreakingly, this means that, when she cries, as any small girl is entitled to do, her parent’s hugs and affection only add to her woes. Any innocuous trip or fall in the school playground also results in her being taken to the emergency room, whilst little Lizzy can’t be showered because the water pressure causes her skin to break out too.
Lizzy’s mother, Kristin Hendrickson, stated , “There’s nothing that I can do, as a mother, to make her pain go away. You just hope that it ends quickly. But that kind of makes me feel like a failure as a mother, that I have this child that is in pain or gets hurt and I can’t protect her.”
This incurable disease afflicts around 1 in 50,000 people; however, most people only suffer from very mild cases, whilst Lizzy has a much more serious condition, which means her parents must apply bandages to her heal her wounds.
They also help to tend to the illness with ice packs, which relieve the pain that she suffers from. However, they have to pop large blisters across her body daily too.
Mr. and Mrs. Hendrickson are currently looking to raise funds to try and research the disease, which will hopefully lead to scientists finding a cure for the ailment.
