There are some fun things lined up for this week.Tuesday night and running are always fun, of course! Then we are attempting our first Thursday night field trip night of the summer, followed by an invite to a TRY friendly house party Friday night. (See Timmy's post on the FB page for details. He is asking for yes' by Wednesday for planning purposes, so please let him know by then.)
Thursday night: Since it is a "dollar night" at the Syracuse Chiefs and there are only a few of them throughout the season, I thought we could tie into that. The plan allows for running and baseball or just running, or just baseball.
Details:
Meet at 5:30 at the back end of the pedestrian bridge parking lot at Destiny Mall. From 5:35-6:30 do some sort of coordinated run along the Creekwalk. The group runs there in late November and December but this is great chance to actually run there in nice weather and even stop quickly to enjoy the view from the southern end of Onondaga Lake. Wrap up your run by 6:30 and call it a night. OR, make your way over to the baseball game (about 3/4 of a mile away?) and buy general admission tickets around about 6:50. (Slightly later if it's busy.) The baseball only option for people is to meet us over there or once inside the stadium.
For baseball game part:
Parking is $5 or you can walk from street parking or Destiny mall for free (or carpool from our running location to save on number of people paying for parking). GA tickets are $5. Dollar Thursday means 1 dollar for hot dogs and sodas or 2 dollars for certain beers. We will find a space in the upper deck where we can safely stuff our faces and no one will notice our post running stink.
The education part:
(Nothing "important" from a TRY perspective from this point on, so continued reading is optional...but an interesting story for those who enjoy such things.)
Many of you run either the Boilermaker or other races and come across wheel chair runners...my interactions are almost always positive as the upright runners take time to cheer on the "chair" as they pass. (In the BM, it's almost always a slower one that gets caught by an average runner like me, and usually on a tough uphill section so the "chair" is usually struggling when I interact with them.) But how often do you get a chance to think about that specific racer and the path they've taken to get to that point? Well, that is why I thought this next story might strike a chord with some of you curious minded TRYers. A bunch of you were introduced to Desiree last month. (She was the woman in the racing wheel chair.) Some of you got to ask some question but here are some background for all of you...(Yes, I have her full permission to share her story.) She will hopefully be out at TRY another couple times this summer, so I think it's best if most of you know her story to better empathize with her and understand the ride she has been on.
Desiree was a fully able bodied athlete just over 3 years ago. Escalade and I met her during our first Tough Mudder adventure - the one in the Poconos in late April 2012.
Through talking that weekend I learned she had done a few marathons and had even done fitness competitions! She was in better shape then I ever dreamed of being.
Through the magic of Facebook friendship I saw she did the Mountain Goat that year (here she is doing the kids run part with her 4ish year old son)
and another 5k or two, then not long after - in early June 2012, something weird happened. Long story short - she had a bulging disk in her neck that had bothered her some, but no big deal, right? Then one day, while simply standing up to get out of a folding chair at a school event for her child, the disc ruptured and she slumped back into her chair. From that very simple moment, she has not stood up on her own again.
(Escalade and I visited her at St Joe's just before the RFL in 2012 - so we came bearing gifts of a cowbell to help her get the help she needed.)
Part of the disc that ruptured impinged on her spinal cord and it took hours and hours for a doctor to remove it. The long-term damage had been done and in the days and weeks following the surgery she would learn that the injury left her as a quadriplegic. There is a lot of uncertainty in spinal injuries so part of it is a waiting game to find out how the body responds and, of course, countless hours of physical therapy. Desiree is a tough bastard (physically and mentally) and has worked hard to get as much arm and hand function back as she can, but it's been a long, frustrating, process. Mentally, physically, and practically - her house had to be retro-fitted with ramps and accessible features just so she can make the most of it. She loves getting back out there and "running" with people like she used to. The simple training run she did with us led to a very happy Facebook updated. Then, that weekend she got out and did the Socci Stiletto Stampede 5K - and even got her picture in the online album at Syracuse.com. This was the day after Paige's and the several TRY shots we had in that album.
She's done a few road races since her injury and wants to do more. But it's difficult to get her and her chair to places to train or to race. (The chair is very light weight buy bulky, it takes two people to "load" her into it, and then there is the problem of finding people and timing it to get out and train or race. And she is not quite independent in the chair, so needs a race that allows her a running buddy to help her if she gets in trouble.) She, naturally, wishes this has never happened to her, but is determined to make the best of it and often has positive posts on her Facebook feed about what she has been able to do or advances in the medical community that may allow for a "miracle" cure - or at least advancement - someday? Here was a "shocking" photo when it showed up online...back on her feet through the miracle of a bracing system.
I remember we had to learn a bit about spinal cord injuries in high school, but most of what I know now I have learned over the last three years from either talking with her directly or mostly because of articles she posts online.
The location of a spinal cord injury determines what nerves are impacted and what mobility remains. Desiree's happens to be in the C5/6 vertebrae. (Cervical - therefore right near the top. Generally, the higher the injury on the spinal cord, the greater the degree of paralysis that results.) From what I remember hers is right at the point of impacting the arms and hands, or not, so there was a lot of wait and see what movement returned in the early days. At first she could barely use her hands but soon got to the point where she could close them enough to grab things and eventually use a wheel chair. I think to this day she still cannot make a fist though.
She corrected me in the past in defining her paralysis. She calls herself a quadriplegic, at which point, I naively asked: you can use your arms some, why aren't you considered a paraplegic? The answer is that she has limited use of her arms and since they are limited, the "quad" definition applies. Looking up references for this post, wikipedia actually redirects the entry for quad and puts it under "tetraplegia". You can read the details there, but it clearly states "partial, or total loss of use of all their limbs and torso". (Not that I doubted her answer, but it is a common misconception and I know I had it until knowing her.)
Something not directly related to her injury but very interesting from a humanity perspective is how her injury has taught her who her close friends really are. It turns out that there is nothing like a life altering event to show the quality, or lack thereof, of her family and friends. Some people surprise you in both directions and has been a cause of great joy and great misery for her as she found that out over the initial months and now years of being almost fully dependent on others. (Full disclosure - I haven't been that good of a friend to her myself - as I've been a bit busy the past three years. But we're all busy, so I do question myself and why I do not get in positions to help her out more? So, that is why I hope and plan to get her to TRY a few times this running season and help her get some training runs in so she is more prepared for any 5K's she may choose to do. And hopefully, at least once, I'll get to help her on race day because I think that would be very fascinating to see a race from that perspective. I like to see things from different angles and that definitely is a different angle.)
It is hard to know my audiences interest so I'm going to stop at this point. She has posted so much over the last three years that I have found interesting and sometimes fascinating, but I'm not sure if anyone else will? If people are curious, let me know, and I'll add some more unique references to future posts...including the surprising details to me that paralyzed people still can and do have a sex life. (She re-posts from a national blogger who has made it her life's mission to de-mystify some stereotypes that the world has about paralysis...the details have not come from Desiree's life directly.)
Thanks to anyone who has read to the end - let me (or Desiree) know if this has spurred any questions in your mind?
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