BRAVE Keir Platt is celebrating becoming a teenager — a milestone his parents feared he would never reach.

The 13-year-old has an incurable rare genetic disorder, affecting the nervous system, that has robbed him of the ability to walk and talk.

His condition continues to deteriorate and in the summer his family and friends believed he might not pull through after he went to hospital with a chest infection.

But now Keir has defied the odds to celebrate his special birthday, when it was feared that he may not even reach double figures.

A party with family and friends at the family’s home in Dryburgh Avenue, Astley Bridge, to mark the occasion will take place on Saturday.

Michelle Tonge, Keir’s mother, said: “He was really poorly in the Royal Bolton Hospital in the summer but he pulled through and is doing okay.

“We are absolutely over the moon it’s his 13th birthday, but his birthday also makes me feel sad because it reminds me that things aren’t as they should be.

“Keir is definitely a fighter.

“To be brutally honest I don’t think anybody expected him to make it when he went into hospital in the summer but he really did put up a good fight.

“He wanted to carry on.”

Keir, who attends Rumworth School and Firwood School, suffers from metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD) and is one of only a handful of children in Greater Manchester to have the rare condition.

His parents, Miss Tonge, aged 39, and Martin Platt, aged 47, and sister Erin, aged 15, gave Keir a laser projector for his bedroom, as well as talking books, DVDs and clothes.

Miss Tonge said: “Keir has a big personality. Everybody who knows him loves him. He is really happy and smiley. Erin is very protective of him. She absolutely adores him.”