NHS doctor bravely opens up on battle to accept own son's life-limiting condition

dailyrecord.co.uk:

The mum of a Scots teen with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) says she cannot talk about her son's deteriorating condition 'without fear or emotion' as it has left him unable to 'eat, drink or scratch his nose' unaided.

Tomek Ciechomski, of Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire, was diagnosed with DMD - a severe, progressive, muscle-wasting disease that leads to difficulties with movement and premature death - when he was two years old.

Although the 15-year-old managed to get through most of his childhood with decent mobility, two years ago, he lost the ability to walk, and was left wheelchair-bound.The schoolboy is now rapidly losing power in his upper body, meaning he is unable to carry out simple tasks 'that others take for granted' such as raising his arms, scratching his head and brushing his teeth.Tomek's mum, Anna Ciechomska, an NHS doctor, says she struggled to accept her child's condition in the beginning, and has had to reduce her working hours to care for her son, whose life expectancy is just 40 years.The 51-year-old told the Record: "My husband and I are both doctors so I suspected he had DMD from the start, but when the diagnosis came, I was shocked."We battled against it for around three months before we finally accepted it.

It's very hard knowing what will happen and having an insight into this terrible illness."When we first heard about the diagnosis, we thought, why can't it have been cancer or diabetes?