When children are born, most parents are excited and they always start anticipating how the kid shall grow into an independent person. Some parents even have dreams of careers that they might want their children to pursue. However, this is not always the case. What happens when you realize that your child always wants to hurt himself? Will you think that he is possessed by an evil spirit or a demon?
Davey was born with Lesch-Nyhan syndrome. This is a rare genetic disease that causes a person to always want to harm himself. This implies that a person will try to bite his fingers or lips, bang his head on something and even hurt other people around him. It is closely related to cerebral palsy but extremely rare-only 1 in 380,000 births have it.
Due to the nature of this disease, Davy will always try to hurt himself in every way possible. Therefore, his parents have to put evasive measures to ensure that he remains safe. They have to strap him on his wheelchair and ensure he has have arm braces so that he can’t reach his fingers and bite them. He also has to wear special kangaroo poaches to limit his feet from kicking too much.
Despite all these measures, Davey keeps on discovering more ways to hurt himself. This means that his parents have to keep inventing new ways of keeping him safe, while avoiding causing discomfort. Due to his lack of appetite, he lost a lot of weight. This prompted his parents to have a gastro-intestinal tube put on him so that they can feed him directly to his stomach.
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Children born with this disorder have a life expectancy of up to teenagerhood. Due to that, parents whose kids have it should remain very keen to ensure that they give the best care to them. Davey’s parents, aware of this, bought a camera to document his growth. They were actually not sure that he would survive this far. However he has beaten the odds and he is still healthy.
While many parents may be having challenges with raising normal kids, we should all strive to give our children the best care we can ever afford. This couple, which has 4 more kids has just proven that.
Story courtesy of Born Different
You can read more about Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome here.