A dad with an incurable genetic condition causing tumours to grow on nerves and skin fears most people have never heard of the malady which also affects two of his three children, despite there being 25,000 cases in the UK. Mike Bird, 37, was found to have neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) as a baby, after a seizure alerted doctors to a gene mutation that resulted in his diagnosis.
Determined to raise awareness of the condition, Mike, who lives in Bridgwater, Somerset, with his wife, Katrina, 35, a stay-at-home mum, and their children, Nathan, 15, Freya, 11, and Charlie, seven, says early diagnosis can be made if symptoms like ‘café au lait patches’ – flat, pigmented birthmarks – are spotted on a child’s skin.
Mike, whose youngest two children also have NF1, said: “I was just a few days old when I had a seizure and doctors suspected I had a gene mutation, which led to my diagnosis of NF1. I grew up knowing it was hereditary and that there was always a 50 per cent chance of passing the condition on to my children.
