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When Krystal DeVos watches her young daughter, Eliana, play with an Ariel doll, her eyes fill with emotion.

“I call her my little mermaid,” DeVos said of her daughter.

Shortly after Eliana was born, it was the healing power of fish skin that helped her recover from a deep wound on her neck.

“Eliana actually has no idea,” said DeVos, who lives in Corpus Christi, Texas. “Of course, as she gets older, we do want to go back and show her pictures and explain to her what has happened, because it is a part of her story and it’s so unique.”

Eliana’s story began about three years ago, when she was born at 23 weeks gestation, weighing a single pound. She spent 131 days in neonatal intensive car

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