Tim Cirillo was 17 when he learned that he'd never grow old.
He was born with a muscle-wasting disease called Duchenne muscular dystrophy. As a young boy, the genetic condition made it increasingly difficult for him to walk and forced him into a wheelchair for good at age 10.
Initially devastated, he tried to accept his disability, not realizing the full implications of his disease.
At 17, though, the hard facts of his life were difficult to bear.
He graduated from Central Regional High School in Berkeley in 2002, got his associate degree from Ocean County College in Toms River and continued taking classes at OCC toward a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Kean University.
By early 2008, with his college courses winding down, Tim had decided he wanted to strike out on his own. Though he knew he would always be reliant on other people for his daily care, he needed to wrest whatever independence he could from the constraints of his condition.
Searching the Web, Tim learned about a nonprofit organization based in Ocean Township called the LADACIN Network. The acronym stands for Lifetime Assistance for Developmental and Challenging Individual Needs.
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