Posted online: Jun 18th, 2009

A Derry mum has spoken for the first time about her son’s illness which may mean he doesn’t live beyond his teens.
Lynda McIntyre’s two-year-old son Cian McDaid has been diagnosed with Ataxia-Telangiectasia (A-T), a rare genetic disorder which affects just two people in a million.
The condition will see him confined to a wheelchair before his tenth birthday.
Cian was a healthy baby and it wasn’t until he began to walk that his mother had any inkling something was wrong.
“Cian is my only child so I had no other kids to compare him to, but I noticed that he was very unsteady on his feet,” said Lynda.
“After months of testing I was told earlier this year that he has the neurodegenerative genetic disease A-T.
“The doctor said there was no cure and there was nothing we could do.”