Olivia Farnsworth, A Unique Case In The World
Olivia Farnsworth’s case is one of the most surprising on record. We are talking about a British girl who does not feel pain, hunger, or sleep. Those are precisely three of the great human weaknesses and limitations. What happens in a mind that does not register such everyday experiences? How can a person survive who lacks the notion of danger?
Olivia Farnsworth is currently 8 years old. Everything indicates that his case is unique in the world or, at least, the only known one. When her condition became public , much of the press began calling her a “bionic girl.”
She and her family have not paid much attention to those nicknames, nor to the insistence of the media to portray her as a rarity. Instead, they have taken advantage of the popularity to start a campaign to raise funds for their case to be scientifically investigated. This, eventually, will be done by the University Medical Center of Groningen (Holland).
Olivia Farnsworth and her strange features
Olivia Farnsworth was born in the English town of Huddersfield, which is halfway between Manchester and Leeds. She is a beautiful and happy girl, who has grown normally, although she already manifested some strange symptoms from an early age. Her mother noticed some differences from other children when she was a baby.
Olivia hardly ever cried and her mother, at first, simply thought that it was a quiet baby, who did not get upset easily. However, when he began to grow, he also showed difficulty sleeping .
She was active all day and from the age of 9 months she never took a nap again. Despite this, when night came she was still very dynamic and sometimes woke her parents at dawn. He also didn’t seem to have much of an appetite; he only ate after his parents urged him to do so. Her mother started calling her “baby of steel.”
A striking fact
All these characteristics did not arouse suspicion in his parents. They thought that that was just little Olivia Farnsworth’s temperament. However, when it was time for her to go to school, an event occurred that was completely out of the ordinary. Olivia fell and got a deep wound on her lip. He was bleeding profusely, but he reacted as if it were normal.
When they took her to the hospital, they had to undergo minor surgery. The girl showed no sign of pain. This obviously got the attention of the doctor, the first person to alert the family to the rare condition. Even so, the parents did not know how far this oddity reached.
They verified it later, when a vehicle ran over the girl. He dragged her for more than 20 meters and then the girl got up, as if nothing had happened. Later, the doctors explained that nothing had happened to him, not because he was immune to damage, but because he had kept his body so relaxed during the accident that no fractures occurred.
Thus, they discovered that Olivia Farnsworth not only lacked sensations of pain, but also had no notion of danger. For this reason, she had not evaded the car and had not minded the fact that he ran her over.
Scientific explanations
There are recorded cases of people who do not feel pain, or who have less appetite than normal, or who hardly need to sleep. However, the case of Olivia Farnsworth is the only one in which all these characteristics are present simultaneously. Doctors have explained that it is a rare genetic condition caused by the absence of chromosome 6.
In reality, it is not that this chromosome is absent at all, but that it surely has such a significant alteration that, basically, it leaves it unusable. This deficiency has led to Olivia Farnsworth having to take sleeping pills to sleep.
That is the great tragedy of this girl: that she does not feel sleepy does not mean that she does not need to sleep; not feeling hungry does not mean that you do not need to eat. Likewise, the absence of pain does not equal the absence of damage to your body. For all these reasons, she is someone who needs a lot of care, since she does not have the internal signals that alert her to what she needs to continue living.
