Hello! My name is Ronny and I‘m Luke’s Dad. Luke suffers from a rare peculiarity with the name “Progeria”, which means that his body is aging 10 times faster than (y)ours. Therefore, our time together is very limited. In order to make Luke’s short life as beautiful as possible, I quit my job.
Unfortunately, I don’t get any financial support from the German state. Neither in his treatment nor in the financing of flights to the United States where we are under treatment. In Germany only two cases of progeria are known, so there is no research or treatment here. This year we have to travel to America as a family to pick up medicines that have been proven to extend Luke’s life a little longer! Before that we have to stay in the Boston Children’s hospital and Luke hast to undergo a series of investigations, and after 14 days of ordeal, we’re done there.
We have to make this trip every two years and that’s why I’m trying to fund it through social media channels with advertising revenue. We hope that with gaining more followers we might be able to draw attention to advertisers, who could help paying the bills. We are not begging for money, only attention! Additionally, my wife and I hope that Luke’s life will be a little bit easier in the future thanks to his popularity. If people know him and meet him on the streets, they might hopefully not tease him or say that he looks strange.
We would rather hear them say things like “Oh, there’s Luke. I know him from Facebook (@Luke Böhm) / Instagram (@Lukes_dad78)“ instead of hearing mean and hurtful comments. Luke’s future won’t be an easy one because he will look different than what we would describe as “The Norm”. However, we hope deeply that most of the reactions will be positive and not hurtful. Thank you for listening and greetings from Germany. Ronny
