Watch the two girls who were born with albinism
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Two girls with albinism, from Melbourne, Australia, have become the best of friends.
14-year-old Lucy Carpenter and 13-year-old Sammy McCombe have a rare form of albinism called oculocutaneous albinism – which affects skin, hair, and eyes, and causes vision impairment.
Lucy and Sammy met for the first time when they were babies. Their mothers went to an event held to support families with children with albinism.
They lost contact for a brief moment but now they have been inseparable after being reunited.
Lucy told Barcroft TV: “To have Sammy as a close friend it means a lot to me, it is really nice to have someone to relate to because I know a lot of my other friends don’t quite understand as well what I am going through and it is really funny to be able to talk to Sammy and relate to things.”
Both teenagers say that there are some negatives and positives in their albinism. They say that it is hard to see things, especially in the distance which is a negative thing.
The positive thing is they like their hair.
Sammy said: “I like the hair, not so much the skin, I have always had a problem with it. But with the Instagram, if we didn’t have albinism we would still love fashion and everything and photography, but it is just a lot more fun having albinism because it is an excuse for people to get on there and connect with us.”
Lucy and Sammy have a joint Instagram account where they share their pictures and have more than 10,000 followers.
Lucy said: “We are kind of like the same person in a way because we are so similar in what we have been through, and that’s really special for us to have someone that you know so well and they know you so well back, it just doesn’t really feel like we are friends, it feels like we are sisters.
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Sammy added: “Yeah we are not perfect, we have our ups and downs and we argue and debate over everything, and we are different people but at the end of the day that doesn’t matter because we are still friends.”