DYKER HEIGHTS — Fran Vella-Marrone believes that God is in her corner. Literally.
Vella-Marrone, a 62-year-old paralegal from Dyker Heights, has taken up boxing, not to go 12 rounds in a championship fight, but to throw swift jabs at Parkinson’s disease, an illness she has been living with for the past two years.
Twice a week, Vella-Marrone heads to Gleason’s gym in DUMBO to put on a pair of gloves and train with former professional boxer Gary Stark Jr. to improve her strength, stamina, and coordination.
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“It’s making a difference. I can tell,” she said. “One of my symptoms is that I have stiffness in my hand and my arm on my right side, and my leg. When I work out, I feel so much better. Everything feels looser. I can move better.”
What Vella-Marrone does isn’t traditional boxing. Instead of hitting people, she hits a punching bag. But she otherwise mimics a boxer’s movements in the ring.
When Vella-Marrone was diagnosed in 2023, she said she relied on her Catholic faith to help her cope. She is a parishioner of St. Ephrem Church in Dyker Heights and also attends Mass at the Shrine Church of St. Bernadette.
“I believe that everything happens for a reason,” she said. “I thought that if I had this disease, that God felt I could handle it.”
After her doctor recommended that she take up boxing as exercise, she looked for a trainer, but Vella-Marrone, who works full-time at the Connors & Sullivan law firm in Bay Ridge, had a tough time finding one who could fit into her busy schedule.
“Most Parkinson’s patients are older and retired. And the boxing lessons take place in the middle of the workday,” she explained. “I needed to work out nights and weekends.”
Vella-Marrone is also busy with other activities, serving as chairperson of the Kings County Conservative Party and as a member of the Dyker Heights Civic Association and the Cathedral Club of Brooklyn.
She searched in vain until one day, when she came across Punch4Parkinson’s, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit that pairs patients with trainers in their local communities. She completed an online questionnaire and received a phone call from Ryan Roach, the founder.
Within a short time, she was paired with Stark and climbed into the ring at Gleason’s Gym.
Parkinson’s disease is a chronic, progressive brain disorder that causes tremors, stiffness, and slowness in movement. Its symptoms often worsen over time, but treatments can help patients manage them.
According to the Parkinson’s Foundation, 1.1 million people in the U.S. are living with the disease. Each year, 90,000 people are diagnosed. Actor Michael J. Fox of “Back to the Future” fame went public with his battle with Parkinson’s in 1998.
Boxing has been linked to Parkinson’s by medical experts. According to the McKnight Brain Institute at the University of Florida, doctors who treated the late, great champion Muhammad Ali provided evidence that he had Parkinson’s due to repeated blows to the head in the ring. Ali died in 2016.
And a 2017 study of retired Filipino boxers found that 80% of them had Parkinsonism, an illness with Parkinson’s-like symptoms.
However, many doctors, like Vella-Marrone’s, have recommended non-contact boxing for Parkinson’s patients. “You’re only in danger if you get hit in the head,” she said. “What we do is different.”
Vella-Marrone said she plans to continue boxing for a long time.
“Parkinson’s is something you can live with,” she said. “You have to keep moving.”