KARINE de Souza, 32, has xeroderma pigmentosum, an extremely rare medical condition which means she cannot be exposed to direct sunlight. If she does go out in the sun, spots appear across her body, which develop into melanomas, a type of cancer. She explained: "When I expose myself to the sun it doesn’t happen in the moment, I don’t feel anything. However, in the future, the lesions appear and need to be removed because of cancer." She's had more than 200 surgeries to remove these skin lesions and believed that she would "never find love" because of her condition, but in 2018 she met her partner Edmilson, 27, on social media. "He came and he showed me that I could live a true love story", she said. Edmilson messaged Karine after seeing a post about her on Facebook and found "her life story really interesting, it caught my attention" he explained. The couple spent five months exchanging messages, and then Karine went to meet him in person in his hometown of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Eventually, Edmilson moved to Fortaleza to be with her, and the pair got married. Despite their happiness, the couple has faced judgement on social media, "we really suffer with prejudice. When we met and I started posting pictures of us together, it became viral in social media, because of my appearance" Karine said. "Because of the fact he’s a young man and pretty, that caught people's attention and they didn’t believe that he was with me because he really liked me." They have been trying for a baby since 2020, and are now pregnant with their first child together, a daughter named Zaia. However, they waited four months before announcing the news on social media over fears of a negative reaction from trolls.

Follow their story here:
https://www.instagram.com/kah05oficial/