A fit-as-a-fiddle Northumberland man saw his life turned upside down when he developed an extremely rare degenerative terminal illness - and now his four adult children are to take on the Great North Run to highlight his brutal illness.
Retired accountant Ernie McGeorge, 78, has Multiple System Atropy (MSA) - an illness which sees the brain slowly lose the ability to control the body. Its early symptoms can be mistaken for Parkinson's, while it is a related illness to Motor Neurone Disease.
Ernie - a former semi-professional footballer who would run regularly and even completed the Great North Run himself at the age of 63 - has been slowly becoming more and more unwell over the past few years. Wife Irene is now his full-time carer, while at Christmastime last year his family thought they might lose him as he suffered with pneumonia.
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At that point, Ernie's hero Alan Shearer even got in touch with a message of support. Bedlington-based Ernie required a tracheotomy to help him breathe - carried out at the Freeman Hospital.
However, the grandfather-of-seven pulled through, and to honour his determination to keep fighting - he even continues to attempt squats when he can - his four children are looking to raise awareness of his disease, which they feel deserves more attention. Later this year Kate Graham, Holly Demanze, Laura McGeorge and Tom McGeorge will be taking on the famous Geordie run together.
Holly said: "My dad is a proper North East dad. We grew up in Leeds but he and my mum moved back to the North East where he is from. He was always a fit and active man, playing semi-pro football, taking on the Great North Run in his 60s. But a few years ago he started to have a few 'wobbles'.
"They thought it might be Parkinson's. But it wasn't, it was MSA. I got married in 2017 and since then dad's really declined. He's in a wheelchair, he struggles to breathe. MSA is a neurological condition where the brain struggles to tell the body what to do.
"He needs lots of support and my mum is his full-time carer. We didn't really think he would still be here - and now we want to raise as much as we can. There's no cure and not a lot of support. We want to do what we can and thought what better than to run the race in his hometown and make him proud."
Sister Kate added: "Dad has always been a runner and done the Great North Run and this felt like something we could do after what's been a really tough year. At the beginning of the year, when he was in hospital we didn't think he would make it out. But now the GNR is a really positive thing we can all look forward to."
The siblings hope that their dad will be able to join them in his wheelchair for the final mile or so of the Great North Run, too.
Support the McGeorge family's fundraising at JustGiving.
