‘There are days when I can do backflip and other days when I can’t walk’

BIRTHDAY celebrations are memorable occasions for most children but Danny De Vaal’s recollection of hitting six is tinged with a sense of pain.

“Coming up to my sixth birthday, I started getting pains and I thought they were growing pains and so did my Mam. But they got so bad, it came to the stage where I couldn’t even pull my trousers down when I tried to use the toilet.”

His mother brought him to the doctor the day he tried to grip a yoghurt and it fell right out of his hand.