Published: Tuesday, 26th June, 2007 09:36
BRAVE TOT'S BATTLE WITH HER 'OUCHIES'
By Kirsteen Paterson
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A BATTLING four-year-old is the face of a new campaign to fight childhood arthritis.
Gorgeous Honor Byrne has lived with the children’s form of the disease her whole life.
Specialists diagnosed her with juvenile idiopathis arthritis (JIA) when she was just 15 months old.
Few people realise that the joint problem, which is common in pensioners, also strikes one child in every thousand across the UK.
Now she is helping a leading charity raise funds for research into the debilitating condition.
Mum Jacqueline says she realised her tiny daughter was suffering when she was just an infant.
As a baby, Honor, from Dumbarton, was visibly upset when being dressed, and some mornings she would scream with pain.
Jacqueline and husband Kevin took her to a doctor and Honor was referred to specialists, who spotted the symptoms right away.
Jacqueline said: “I was devastated. I thought, ‘she can’t have arthritis, old people get that’. You don’t realise it affects children too.
“I cried on the way home from hospital.”
They havenow raised around £10,000 for charity, and are now throwing their support behind the Noddy Appeal, run by the Arthritis Research Campaign (ARC).
The appeal week began yesterday (Monday) and ARC aim to raise £1m for research into treatments and cures.
To help, donate, or for more information visit www.noddyappeal.org.
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