A disease called Fibrodysplasia ossifying progressive (FOP) sounds much less scary than it really is.
In fact, a person with such a disease is "locked" in his own body. He feels, senses everything, his intellect does not suffer, but he cannot move, since his muscles have become bones.
This is a very rare and severe genetic abnormality that affects approximately 1 in a million people.
All the muscles of this person's body, all his tendons and ligaments turn into a kind of bones - they ossify. A person always acquires one position, in which he is forced to sleep and be awake.
It all starts from childhood and progresses inexorably with age. There is no cure for this disease. Death most often occurs from the fact that ossification touches the cartilage of the ribs and the person cannot breathe.
Most people do not know anything about this terrible anomaly. For them, the hardest thing about losing mobility is walking with a stick.
Tosi Mtsiki, 50, from South Africa, began to lose mobility due to FOP when he was just a few months old.
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Now he can no longer completely move his lower body, and in the upper one he can only move his arms a little. He is also still able to speak.
His torso seems to be twisted, and his thin arms will never bend at the elbows. His legs are already as hard as bones. From morning to evening, a nurse helps him in everything.
Mtsiki was officially diagnosed at the age of seven and until 2008 he could still walk on his own with a cane. Now he can only move in a wheelchair, which was purchased for him with the help of charitable funds.
He is still able to go to the toilet on his own, transferring himself to the toilet with his hands, but even this action is more difficult for him to do every time, including because the toilet in his house is not adapted for a wheelchair.
Mtsiki dreams of a more spacious toilet and shower stall with handrails. Then he could take care of himself for some time at least partially. He is very embarrassed that the nurse helps him to wash every time.
But despite his verdict, Mtsiki believes that he can still benefit society. He tells other sick people with FOP about what they will have to face and how best to get through it.
According to him, especially young people will find it very difficult to accept all this, but they should not withdraw into themselves and consider themselves worse than other people.
Mtsiki's words also refer to the 18-year-old Damien Fredericks, who lives in South Africa, near Cape Town. He was diagnosed with FOP in 2009 and is now at a very early stage of the disease.
He can still walk and even run, he loves to play football. But he already had problems with hand mobility.
And then the boy was playing cricket with his friends and he suddenly realized that he could not raise one hand very much. After that, the family started going to one hospital, then to another. As a result, they arrived in a suburb of Cape Town, since only there the doctors knew something about the FOP.
Fredericks was lucky that his family is much richer than Mtsika's relatives and now the boy's parents want to make for him a special room with handrails and everything necessary that will be needed when his illness progresses.
By the age of 18, Fredericks' arms, shoulders and part of the neck became even more ossified, but the lower part of his body had not yet suffered at all.
