'Look Mum, I've Had Too Many Beers' ; How One Brave Little Girl Copes with Her Rare Walking Disability

Summary

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AS 11-year-old Darcy Coombs staggers unsteadily across the room, she calls out to her mum "I've had too many beers!" Mum Sarah just laughs. It is a joke she has become all too familiar with - she knows it is her brave young daughter's way of coping with Ataxia - an ultra-rare condition which affects her co-ordination and balance.

It is the sort of humour which gets Darcy and her family, including brother Jordan, 16, through the gruelling hospital visits needed to keep check on the neurological disorder the youngster was born with.

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Extract

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'Look Mum, I've Had Too Many Beers' ; How One Brave Little Girl Copes with Her Rare Walking Disability

Yet it was not until Darcy, from Cardiff, was two years old that she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, of which Ataxia is a symptom affecting the nervous system.

Sarah, 35, said: "I had a normal birth and was out of hospital in five hours.

"Everything seemed fine except the fact that Darcy cried constantly.

"Apart from when she was sleeping ...

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