ABBEY FitzGerald first became concerned about her husband Ed after she noticed a strange symptom when he ran.

But the couple never expected the diagnosis that came next.

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The couple had always enjoyed running together, but in the summer of 2018, Abby pointed out that something was wrong with his arm.

"My wife kept telling me, 'make sure you swing your arm,' Ed FitzGerald, 50, recalled.

"I thought it might be something to do with a trapped nerve, but I didn't think much of it," the dad added.

And neither did Abbey.

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The 49-year-old said: "To be honest, I didn't think too much about it.

"Certainly the idea of Parkinson’s never entered my head for a second."

Ed, a marketing director at RPC, from Bromley, south London, had previously noticed a lack of mobility in his arm when he was on holiday.

He said: "One year, we were on holiday in Lanzarote, and I noticed a lack of mobility in my arm, but at the time I didn't make the connection.

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"I also had extreme fatigue for a long time, but I thought I was just knackered from working too much."

By October 2023, after Ed had been struggling to type with his left hand, he decided to see a GP.

That December, following scans, Ed received life-changing news.

He said: "The doctor said something like, 'how do you want the bad news?' and told me I either had a stroke or have Parkinson's - but said it was more likely to be Parkinson's."

Finding out that Ed had Parkinson's came as a "huge shock", to the couple Abbey, a success officer at Greenwich University, said.

"I wrongly assumed that it was a disease that only affected older people," she said.,

Parkinson's is a progressive neurological condition, meaning that it causes problems in the brain and gets worse over time. 

It affects around 153,000 people in the UK.

And although typically it occurs in older people, younger people as young as 20 can also be affected.

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It leads to symptoms like stiffness and freezing can limit certain actions, especially when you’re on your feet.

"[Ed had] always been such an active person, and the idea that he might not be able to do the things he loves to do was unbearable," Abbey added.

Since his diagnosis, Ed's has been forced to make changes to his daily routine.

He said: "I now have to work from home a lot and sometimes have to take a 30-minute nap in the middle of the day because I'm so exhausted.

"At first, I was worried about whether I'd be able to keep working with Parkinson's, but I've been really supported by my colleagues at work."

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Determined to turn his diagnosis into something positive, Ed signed up for the London Marathon to raise money for late last year.

He said: "I wanted to give something back and do something positive.

"I knew that I could wallow in a pit of despair or make something good out of it."

Ed chose to run for Cure Parkinson's after receiving support from the charity early in his diagnosis, raising more than £12,500 since August 2024.

The marathon holds personal significance for Ed after his wife ran it in 2010.

He said: "Part of the reason the London Marathon was right for me was because my wife ran it in support of a childhood leukaemia charity after my son was diagnosed with leukaemia at six-months-old.

"There's a strange circularity to me running this marathon in that sense."

'Incredibly proud'

Despite his exhaustion, Ed's diagnosis motivated him to incorporate even more exercise into his daily routine.

He said: "The irony is that now I probably do more exercise than I did before. I do a greater variety of sports now.

"I even took up non-combat boxing because the research suggests the more active you remain, the slower the progression of symptoms is likely to be."

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Abby added: "He's tackled this challenge as he approaches everything in life - with huge determination - he's taken his training really seriously and is often up running before sunrise.

"I'm incredibly proud of him. The fact that he's raised so much money for Cure Parkinson's is amazing, and hopefully brings this fantastic charity one step close to finding a cure."