In 1993 Patrick Foreman started experiencing severe bouts of unexplained tiredness.

Soon after he was diagnosed with a rare condition called ataxia, a term for several disorders affecting coordination, balance and speech.

The 64-year-old, of Gosfield Road, Herne Bay, was forced to quit his job as a service engineer, and his wife, Debbie Foreman, became his full-time carer.

Now she is hoping to raise awareness of the debilitating condition by running the Brighton Marathon this Sunday.

“Patrick kept working for as long as he could, but it got to the point where he couldn’t feel his feet on the pedals in the car,” she said.

“He drove back from Maidstone once with his hand on his knee to keep his foot on the accelerator pedal; he didn’t tell me that until later.”

There are three types of ataxia – acquired, idiopathic and hereditary – and doctors believe Mr Foreman’s is the latter.

His condition has continued to deteriorate, leaving him needing a walking frame to get around.

“He’s just going downhill gradually,” said Mrs Foreman, who is a 55-year-old mother-of-two.

“He’s very slow physically and mentally and he has to think about putting one foot in front of the other when he’s walking. It’s a big struggle for him.

“It’s not what we signed up for when we got married. I had to tell him that I wasn’t going anywhere - we are very happy.”

Mrs Foreman has been training since January to ready herself for Sunday’s race.

“All I want to do is finish, but it’s probably going to take me seven hours because I’m a very slow runner,” she said.

“This is my first marathon. I started running in January 2015 and I couldn’t run between the Bandstand and Pier without stopping to walk.”

Mrs Foreman has already doubled her target of raising £250 for Ataxia UK – a charity that works to provide support to sufferers, find new forms of treatment and raise awareness of the illness.

“The money may not be able to help Patrick, but I want it to help the next lot of sufferers,” Mrs Foreman added.

“There’s no cure for it, so you just have to live with it, which is something that we’re still learning to do.”

The Foremans have two children, aged 28 and 31, and have been married since 1985.

To donate, visit: www.ataxia.org.uk/fundraisers/debbies-brighton-marathon-for-ataxia-uk.