Emmerdale stars Laura Norton and Mark Jordon share heartache of passing on rare genetic condition to young children

Emmerdale stars and real-life couple Laura Norton and Mark Jordon have revealed the rare genetic condition affecting their infant children.

Laura (Kerry Wyatt) and Mark (Daz Spencer) share two children: son Jesse, two, and daughter Ronnie, who was born in October 2022.

Meanwhile, Mark, 58, is also a dad to two children from his previous marriage to actress Siobhan Finneran, whom he split from in 2014.

But, the engaged couple have had a rollercoaster few months as parents of a newborn baby girl, now sharing that both of their little ones have been diagnosed with Usher syndrome.

Usher syndrome is a rare genetic disease that affects both hearing and vision. It causes deafness or hearing loss, and an eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Sometimes, it also causes problems with balance.

People with Usher syndrome tend to get diagnosed as children or teenagers and while there is no cure for it, there are treatments to help manage vision, hearing, and balance problems.

Speaking about the diagnosis for the first time, Laura, 39, admitted that she was ‘in tears’ at the thought of something being wrong with her children before being made aware of the condition, which the family are now learning more about.

‘We’ve agonised about doing this before we’ve even told our children about their condition… we’re going to write them a letter to explain why we did this and show then when they’re old enough to understand,’ Mark began in an interview with Hello!

On how they first spotted the signs, the parents said they thought something was different in 2021 when eldest Jesse failed hearing tests.

‘My intuition told me there was a serious problem and I was in tears at the thought of it,’ Laura shared.

Source: Read Full Article