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Terminally-ill Oklahoma girl, 9, with rare condition achieves her dream of starring in the 'Nutcracker'

By Piyush Arora
Updated On : 05:45 PST, Dec 13, 2022
Terminally-ill Oklahoma girl, 9, with rare condition achieves her dream of starring in the 'Nutcracker'
Olivia Francis was diagnosed with a rare neurological condition but despite the odds, she got a specially made role in the 'Nutcracker' (screenshot from DailyMail)

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA: Christmas has truly become a season of joy for a terminally ill nine-year-old girl. Olivia Francis, who was diagnosed with a rare neurological condition in 2020, could not contain her happiness when her lifelong dream of starring in the 'Nutcracker' came true.

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Francis had always dreamed of performing in the Christmas ballet, but the little girl's dream was shattered when she was diagnosed with Friedreich's Ataxia just a year after she started taking dance lessons. “It’s called Friedreich's ataxia. It affects about 15,000 people nationwide,” Francis' mother, Mary, told KOCO. The rare disease directly affects a person's ability to walk and makes them dependent on a wheelchair or walker, per Daily Mail.