It’s a request a mother would never want to hear from her child: “Mummy, please let me die”.
But for five-year-old Morgan Bishop from the UK who is battling severe eczema, sometimes death seems preferable to the extreme pain of his condition.
According to Cosmopolitan and The Daily Mail reports, Morgan has had extremely bad eczema since he was just four months old.
Additionally, he suffers from asthma, food allergies and a kidney condition called FSGS Nephrotic Syndrome (which causes large amounts of protein to leak out of his kidneys), all of which started at a very young age.
For this little boy struggling with so many ailments, right now, his eczema is making him suffer the most. His mum Dana Bishop says that sometimes the eczema flares up so badly that her son’s skin looks like it has been burned with acid.
He can’t walk because the skin on his legs and feet is extremely sore especially during a flare-up, forcing him to use a mobility scooter to get around.
Little Morgan can only go to school for half days at a time because of the condition, and even while at school, sometimes his skin gets so itchy that he can’t even hold a pencil properly.
He often can’t sleep because of the pain, and is hardly ever able to play with his friends.
Morgan is rapidly running out of treatment options. Keep reading on the next page.
Running out of treatment options
According to reports, Morgan’s family is running out of treatment options, having tried “almost every treatment available on the NHS – including a form of chemotherapy.”
Dana says:
We’ve lost part of Morgan’s personality to the eczema. We haven’t got lives. Winter is hell for his skin because of the central heating and cold weather, but we rarely go outside in the summer either as heat and pollen aggravate the eczema too. There’s no respite for us. On his fifth birthday, Morgan told me he’d rather die than cope with the pain of eczema anymore – it was heartbreaking to hear.
Morgan’s little brother Jenson, who is just one year old, is very understanding, says his mum. “He’ll see Morgan scratching and try to help by rubbing his cream in for him.”
Currently, Morgan’s family are trying out therapy for him at the Avene Hydrotherapy Centre in France — they believe this is the last chance to bring him some relief from his agonising skin condition.
“All Morgan wants is for the itching to stop,” says Dana, adding “He always asks me if I can make it stop in time for Christmas or his birthday.”
We sincerely hope this brave little trooper gets the relief he so deserves.
For tips on caring for a baby with eczema, please click this link.
If you have a child with eczema, what are some of the things you do to bring about relief from the itchiness and pain? Do tell us in a comment below.