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Alex and Nick – What are the Chances?

Friends recall how they came to discover they had something dreadful in common.

Alex's eldest son Harrison was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy in 2011 when he was four and a half. In Alex's words, "Duchenne is a "catastrophic muscle wasting disease". If you've got it, you're lacking the protein dystrophin, which helps muscles repair and grow. Without it, they get damaged and remain damaged, turning into scar tissue. It affects every single muscle in the body from legs and arms to eyelids. Unfortunately, it makes children wheelchair-bound by their early teens, and then they suffer heart and lung complications in their early 20s. In most cases, that's when you lose them.". There is no treatment or cure. Alex threw himself into fundraising and started a charity in 2013 called Harrison's Fund, eventually quitting his job to work on the charity full time. He took out a full page ad in the Evening Standard to try to raise awareness, and Nick, a film producer was intrigued and got in touch with Alex. They had the idea to make a documentary about Alex's plan to take part in a full ironman competition, carrying Harrison with him (this was completed in June 2015). Whilst discussions continued, there ensued an extraordinary cruel coincidence. Nick and his wife Klara had thought their eldest son was a bit of a late starter but in June 2014 a doctor told them he had Duchenne. The first person he messaged was Alex, as they discuss here. Nick's second son also has the condition.

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3 minutes

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