Elio: The condition I have is unknown.
Elio: Unknown, I don’t know what it’s called.
Elio: It’s just I get used to it.
Elio: Hi my name is Elio and when I grow up, I would like to be a professional gamer or a professional chef.
Elio: I’m short for my age
Elio: I heal faster than usual.
Jane: During my pregnancy everything was absolutely fine.
Jane: But when he was born, it was a surprise not just for us but for the doctors as well.
Jane: They said that what he had was cystic fibrosis, they would run some tests and
that I should start preparing.
Jane: So me and his father, we started preparing for his funeral.
Jane: That he wouldn’t last his first year.
Jane: We said he’s going to make it through this and 13 years later, he’s here.
Jane: Well there was no prognosis, everything has always been a guessing prognosis.
Jane: And to this day, Elio still has not been completely diagnosed with any condition.
They’ve come up to the closest thing as far as Ichthyosis syndrome.
Jane: I would love for them to just come up with a name and just diagnose him with something.
Jane: So he has a proper name for his condition.
Jane: Even if it’s rare, it’s one in a million.
Jane: He doesn’t have all the layers of skin that we do.
Jane: Like for instance, if he falls down and he needs stitches, he’s actually healed within 24 hours.
Jane: Yeah, so he hasn’t really had the necessity to have stitches.
Jane: Because his skin is always reproducing so it heals really, really quick.
Jane: And like you get hurt and how fast you heal.
Elio: Yeah!
Jane: You want to tell them a little bit about it?
Elio: I have a scooter and while I was riding it and we were going down a bridge.
Elio: And I didn’t know how steep it was and I lost control and I busted my whole knee.
Elio: And my whole arm as you can see here and it was healed within three days.
Interviewer: No stitches?
Elio: No stitches.
Elio: No, she gave me antibiotics.
Jane: With Elio’s regiment on a daily basis, he has to take his bath.
Jane: Sits about 20 to 30 minutes, scrub all his dead skin off.
Jane: So we put his Vaseline every two to three hours or more depending on how the weather is.
Jane: He’ll get dry faster
Jane: We put his mineral oil on him to keep his body oiled and cream which doesn’t help because then he
can’t really go outside because the sun will burn him even more with the oil.
Jane: So we always put long sleeves on him, protective gear.
Jane: We always put a hat on him to protect him from getting burned.
Jane: The vaseline gets stuck on his clothes and on his hat.
Jane: And it’s really hard to wash off because of the consistency in the oil.
Jane: So we’re always buying him clothes, always getting him hats.
Jane: Probably spend almost about $200-$300 a month just in clothing for him.
Elio: I’ve been told to kill myself.
Elio: I’ve been told to just leave, go somewhere else.
Elio: I’ve been called ugly, I’ve been called Elmo.
Elio: I’ve been called tomato.
Elio: You know what this girl called me once?
Elio: She called me a disabled.
Elio: She said, 'Get out of here, you handicap.'
Jane: People making fun of him because he smells strong.
Jane: Because it's dead flesh so it smells really bad and they tell him you stink.
Jane: And situations where he’s been on the bus and he got kicked off of the bus because the kids kept
complaining about how he smelled.
Elio: I don’t even care anymore, I mean I’ve gotten used to it to the point where it doesn’t matter.
Elio: That they say mean stuff to me.
Elio: Sticks and stones break my bones, but words don’t hurt me, you know.
Elio: So my sister Yasmin, she doesn’t like when kids mess with me.
Elio: She doesn’t. She hates it
Yania: I was like his bodyguard at school you know.
Yania: Whenever kids were picking on him.
Yania: People reject things that are different.
Yania: You know. They don’t know what it’s like to be in his position and to be born with a condition.
Yania: Elio is very charismatic, he is very hyper, he’s very energetic.
Yania: He’s very social, he’s a sweet kid, you know he’s just had the rough end of life.
Yania: And it’s been hard but he’s sweet.
Yania: He’s my little brother, he’s my baby.
Jane: He sees you, he’s not dumb, he knows that you’re talking about him.
Jane: That’s not cool.
Jane: There is people that are different. But we are all different races, different colours.
Jane: We have blue eyes, brown eyes you know.
Jane: We’re all different but we’re all humans, we all have feelings.
Jane: We all have emotions.
Jane: We all have a heart, so we all need to understand that even though we look different, we’re still human.
Jane: We shouldn’t hurt each other’s feelings that way.