Torment of boy trapped in his home
A TEENAGE boy with a skinpeeling condition has not stepped foot outside his home in a year.
The family of Rhys Williams, 15, have released a video to highlight his plight.
He suffers from a rare and life-limiting skin condition that causes painful sores and blisters all over his body and means if he catches Covid-19 he could die.
Mum Tanya Williams, 37, from Bolton, Greater Manchester, said: “We treat each day as if it is Rhys’s last.We have been told as soon as he turns 16 [in September] he can have the jab. Until then we just have to wait, which is cruel and heartbreaking.”
Trapped since the country was put in lockdown last March, things became so bad at one point that Rhys asked to die and planned his funeral with his parents.
But he rallied and relatives are now raising money for a hydrotherapy tub.
With his condition, called epidermolysis bullosa, such a bath is the only place he can be free from pain.
Tina explained: “He can’t walk, he can’t move, so he’s fixed in the wheelchair position most of the time – when he’s lying down he’s like a turtle on his back with his legs in the air, and he has to sleep like that too.
“But when he’s in the bath he’s able to relax his muscles, it helps loosen the tightness around the back of his knees and his arms.
“Getting him into the water a few times a week would make such a difference.
“There are days where he doesn’t feel like he deserves to be in this world because of the way some people look at him, it’s so wrong.”
Donations can be made at www.gofund.me/96378a26