This nine-year-old boy suffering from a rare ‘Benjamin Button’ disease that makes him age rapidly dreams of becoming a soldier or police officer and does not lose the hope that he will get better one day.
Veysel Cozvelioglu, who hails from the Turkish capital Ankara, was born as a healthy baby, but the first symptoms started to appear when he was four months old, says his mother Arife Cozvelioglu.
Following a long medical examination when Veysel was four, he was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition known as progeria, or Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome, which causes sufferers to age faster than usual.
The condition affects about one in 20 million people around the world, and Veysel is one of just four known cases in Turkey.
Arife, who takes her son to school every day, told local media: “When I am out with my son, we have problems with the older children. Asking questions about my child’s illness or using words that may offend him upsets my son a lot…
“Please do not look at our children with pity. People should not comment on one’s physical characteristics. ‘Why is this child like this, why does he have no hair, do you ever look after him, why didn’t you feed him?’ Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who talk like that. What parent does not want their child to grow up and gain weight?
“Their inability to gain weight is a hallmark of progeria, they eat very little food. This slows down their development, so after the age of one, development stops for children with this disease, they do not grow.”
Mustafa Cozvelioglu, Veysel’s father, hopes that clinical research might help with his son’s condition: “The child of our doctor at the hospital passed away from progeria, so he has devoted himself to the treatment of this disease. Three studies are currently ongoing at the hospital, and they say they are close to yielding results.
“We are using a pill that was approved by the FDA in 2021 that is not therapeutic but is aimed at increasing the quality of life against the ailments of ageing.”
Veysel said: “I like painting the most, but when I grow up, I want to be a soldier or a police officer.”
