Brotherly love, Weekend, page 13

of a coincidence,’’ Bayard said. She believed they might all be distantly related.

Bayard said she ‘‘floundered’’ for many years with her own sons as DC was so rare that many doctors did not know it existed, let alone how to treat it.

Last June she went to a conference in Sydney for sufferers which led her to help set up Dyskeratosis Outreach Pacific which caters to sufferers in New Zealand and Australia.

The board is made up of doctors and patients who are dedicated to information sharing and increasing awareness. Bayard is the president.