The Comeback Kid: #16 in a Series

In his junior year of high school, Kevin Quadrozzi was the fastest cross-country runner in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. There were quite a few colleges and universities interested in him. He was in talks with the coach at the University of Massachusetts. His future was bright.

This self-described injury-prone athlete developed a strange pain in his leg. He had a string of stress fractures in the past, but this felt different. After a few treatments from a physical therapist, he realized the pain wasn’t going away.

His sports orthopedist ordered an MRI of his leg and noticed a spot that concerned him. Three days later, Kevin had a bone scan. “They told me it was a tumor. When they showed me where it was on my tibia, it looked like an over-sized jelly bean,” he explained, “That same day, my parents told my sisters and I that they were getting a divorce. We didn’t see it coming. It was a tough time for me. I was scared.”

After undergoing a second bone scan, it became evident that the tumor was benign. “It showed the tumor was disintegrating, which lead to another problem because it formed a hole. The outside of my tibia was very thin like the crust of an eggshell,” he recalled.

His doctors were nervous and thought he might need surgery right away. Kevin was nervous that he might miss his upcoming cross-country races and blow his chances at being recruited by colleges.

The doctors understood and gave him two options. He could postpone his surgery until after his cross-country season as long as he cut his weekly mileage in half. They warned him that he could break his leg at any time. Or he could have the surgery that summer and miss his cross-country season.

Like any red-blooded runner, he opted to avoid the surgery. He reduced his running mileage from 60 to 30 miles a week. He biked and even competed in some road races. And he swam. He did whatever he could to maintain his fitness and baby his leg.

His patience paid off. “I ended up being second in the county going into the championship meets,” he explained, “Then, I ran a race with two of my rivals and I had the worst finish of my high school career. I placed seventh and passed right out. I ended up going to the emergency room and they diagnosed me with mono. The same week one of my best friends died suddenly.”

Since he wouldn’t be able to compete in those final championship events, he thought it would be the perfect time to get that surgery he needed. His doctors did not concur. He couldn’t have the surgery until his blood work returned to normal. He had blood tests twice a week for five weeks before he was cleared to have the operation.

Since Kevin’s condition was so rare, his doctor had never performed this kind of surgery before. He was given the option of filling the hole with artificial bone or his own bone, which would heal faster, but would be more painful. Kevin wanted the quicker recovery.

The next question was where would they harvest the bone on Kevin’s body that was big enough to fill the hole? He went under anesthesia not knowing whether it would be from his hip or his knee. The surgery went smoothly. “When I woke up, I saw the marks on my hip where they planned to cut, but they opted to chisel off a piece on the outside of my knee. I was glad because those marks looked big,” he said. Kevin spent the next three days in the hospital.

Then he spent the next two months on crutches with a DIY (do-it-yourself) rehab program that was more fitting for an Ironman in training. “I probably did a little more than I should have,” he recalled with a laugh, “I biked 400-500 miles a week on the trainer. That was about all I could do. I’d pop a movie in after school and bike for a couple of hours.”

Kevin was definitely ready for his spring track season. He finished high school with a few PRs under his belt, including a 4:32 mile. He went to the University of Massachusetts, after all. “I didn’t even tell my coach about the tumor until my sophomore year,” he admitted. He had a couple of nagging injuries in college, but managed to bring his mile time down to 4:14 and his 5K time down to 15:00. He placed 32nd at the U.S. Men’s 5K Championship, the national road championship, in his senior year.

Now that he has graduated, he plans to get his MBA in Sports Management from Florida Atlantic University. He’s eligible for the school’s cross-country team and club track team. “Once I’m done competing in the mile, I want to start doing marathons. My goal is to do Ironman races and qualify for Kona some day. That’s what I’d really like to do.” He’s come this far. It’s not that hard to picture him running through the lava fields of Hawaii next.

NOTE: If you have a good comeback story, please contact me at sixtwothreetries@gmail.com. I’d like to interview you. I hope this will be one of many Comeback Kid stories. Here’s why.

Another Lucy Moment

I worked out in my rehab gym yesterday. It’s a small gym with lots of equipment for me to use. I noticed a cute older lady being put through her paces by our trainer, Colleen. I was being quiet and kind of felt like I was eavesdropping on her session as I did my step-ups, rocker-board, mat, and pilates exercises.

Then it was time for me to do squats against the wall with an exercise ball to support my back. And it was time for the little redhead to do the same thing. When she squatted down. I squatted up. We were like pistons going up and down. At the end of the exercise, we burst out laughing. These are the moments I love about working out with people. They can be so unexpected. They ignite a happy energy. It gave us such a chuckle that we did another set the same way. We both agreed it reminded us of this clip.

The Comeback Kid: #15 in a Series

Ask 60-year old Wayne Wright how many marathons he’s done in his life and he answers, “I ran 36 marathons before I died, and 39 marathons after I died.” The retired Army major thrives on adrenaline. He was an Army Ranger, a Green Beret, a Commander of a battalion of drill sergeants, and a competitive marksman. He was also trained as an EMT. So when he had symptoms of angina during the first mile of a 10K road race in February 2007, he knew something was wrong.

“I had a pain in my heart. A heart attack has a very crushing feeling like ‘get that truck off my chest,’” he explained, “I didn’t have that – it was just like somebody stuck a knife in my heart.” After he warmed up, the heart got more blood or more endorphins kicked in, and the pain went away. Wayne finished the race. “I had a discomfort that felt like a sunburn, but inside my chest,” he recalled, “A sunburn is not debilitating. It’s just annoying.”

On Monday, he went to see his physician, who told him, “Of course, it can’t be your heart. You’re a marathoner.” Wayne thought he was in the clear. The next weekend, he went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and ran a 3:49 marathon – the second fastest marathon in his life. Two weeks later, he ran a 3:56 marathon in Napa Valley, California. He flew directly from there to Reno to go skiing at Lake Tahoe for a week.

After he arrived home, he competed in a 5K and won his age group. “I still had this nagging sunburn-like chest pain. Aspirin helped,” he explained, “On Tuesday, I was supposed to fly to Indiana. I decided to cancel my flight and went to the emergency room instead.”

A routine enzyme test ruled out myocardial infarction. The ER doctor wanted to send him home. Fortunately, the cardiologist on call knew Wayne personally, and suggested they do one more test as a precaution. When they prepped him for the catheterization, they told him it would only take 15 minutes and he could watch it on a video monitor. “My wife knew something was wrong when it took an hour and a half,” he said, “I knew something was wrong when I woke up from the procedure.”

The doctors discovered that his left anterior descending artery, commonly referred to as, “the widow maker” which serves the entire left ventricle was 80% blocked. Three other arteries also showed significant obstructions. Two days later, they performed a quadruple bypass on Wayne.

The surgical team at Holmes Regional Medical Center pioneered using arteries instead of veins for bypasses. Their theory is that arteries have thicker muscle walls and are accustomed to contracting more with each beat than a vein. They also believe arteries will last longer, but they haven’t been doing it long enough to know for sure.

For Wayne’s surgery, they replaced those blocked arteries with an artery out of his right forearm, a vein out of his left leg, and his mammary artery. “So I can never breastfeed,” Wayne quipped.

Maybe not, but the man sure can run. And he wasn’t about to let open-heart surgery stop him. He’s not one to sugarcoat things either. It was rough at first. “When I woke up from surgery I said, ‘I must’ve died during surgery because this is hell.’” The surgery took four hours. They stopped his heart for two hours. Which is why he’s known as “The Dead Guy.”

He started walking laps around the large hospital’s hallways. Nine days after his surgery, Wayne walked a 5K in downtown Melbourne, Florida. “Those folks made a big deal out of it and put my picture in the newspaper,” he said, “I didn’t have the heart to tell them I walked six miles the day before.”

Four weeks after his surgery, his doctor said, “Well I guess you can start running a little.” Wayne pointed out to the doctor, “That’s like telling an alcoholic ‘you can start drinking a little.’ So let's put some parameters on it.” You see Wayne is a member of the 50 States Marathon Club and Marathon Maniacs. He completes more marathons in a year than many avid runners run in a lifetime.

His doctor instructed him to run a mile and then walk for a few minutes to see how he felt. He was afraid the endorphins might mask the pain. “I ran for a minute and it kicked my butt. Then I walked five. The next day I was able to walk a minute and 15 seconds and walk 4:45. The day after that it was 1:30,” he recalled.

Two weeks after the check-up and six weeks after surgery, Wayne “The Dead Guy” entered the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati, Ohio. He alternated between running four minutes and walking three minutes until he crossed the finish line in 4:37. “That was the only marathon I ever started where there was a serious concern if could I finish,” he admitted, “I had no idea what was going to happen. I thought it might take me 6 hours or more. I felt great. Fantastic! I’ve got a rebuilt carburetor baby, I’m good to go!” People in his age group joked, “Uh-oh, we know what you could do when your heart was bad. We’ve got to look out now!’

Despite good results at his next few marathons, Wayne was concerned that his Garmin 305 showed his heart rate was a few beats higher than normal – whether he was racing or just reading the newspaper. His cardiologist ordered a nuclear stress test, which showed there was nothing wrong with the plumbing. An ultrasound revealed hypokinesis, which meant not enough movement when his heart pumped. “Normal ejection of the blood out of the left ventricle is 70%. I’m down to 45%. Anything below that is congestive heart failure,” he explained, “I’m right at the border. My heart has to beat three times now to give me the same blood that it used to do with two beats. A small percentage of people have this after open-heart surgery.”

He also watched his father and five uncles die of congestive heart failure. “I watched my father die over a period 10 years. Yes, he was breathing. Yes, he was walking and talking. But he had no quality of life. I’m not going to go that way. I’m going to live every day to the absolute maximum. Each day I wake up is a good one. I’m not going to sit here and wait for death to catch me. I’m going slide into the grave sideways and go ‘Wow, what a ride!’” he explained.

That is certainly one huge motivating factor that drives Wayne to keep running. “I have a can-do spirit, not a defeatist one. In the Green Berets we had a motto, “The difficult, we do right away. The impossible takes a while longer. Miracles are by appointment only.”

Then he added, “Have you seen the movie The Bucket List? My Bucket List is to run a marathon on every continent.” Three weeks ago, he ran the Red Cross Big Five Marathon through a private wild animal preserve in Africa. Before his surgery, he ran marathons in North America, Europe, Antarctica, and Asia, Next year, he’ll go to South America and then Australia. And later this year, he’ll complete his quest to run a marathon in every state in the U.S. He’s returning to Indiana where he was raised to run the Indianapolis Marathon in October. “I’m planning a big party with my family and friends.” The man does have an appointment.

Photos from the Red Cross Big Five Marathon: Top: Runners from the 50 States Marathon Club, this group of six has completed over 1100 marathons; Runners were accompanied by armed rangers to protect them from the wild animals; Elephants blocked the course along the way.





NOTE: If you have a good comeback story, please contact me at sixtwothreetries@gmail.com. I’d like to interview you. I hope this will be one of many Comeback Kid stories. Here’s why.

The Comeback Kid: #14 in a Series

In March 2007, Kara traveled with her softball team to play a few games in Fort Meyers, Florida during spring break. She was a freshman attending Bowdoin College in Maine. In her first game on the mound, pitching for the Polar Bears, Kara threw a screwball. The batter smacked the ball straight up the middle.

Though her reflexes were quick, it was one of those times when she couldn’t get her glove up fast enough to protect herself from the blow. The ball hit Kara on the forehead with full force and knocked her out cold.

The dad of one of her teammates was an EMT and rushed to the mound to help her, along with her coach and athletic trainer. When she came to again, they were concerned. Kara walked off the mound with a bloody nose, but was soon rushed to the hospital by ambulance.

As luck would have it, her own dad was attending a conference in St. Petersburg. He was able to drive down to Fort Meyers and meet her at the hospital. A CAT scan was performed which showed nothing. But Kara had something more than a run-of-the-mill concussion, which she was diagnosed with that night.

Father and daughter checked into a hotel after she was released. Her dad woke Kara up every hour on the hour, as the doctor had ordered. She didn’t remember getting hit by the ball. She thought she was fine. The doctor even cleared her to play. At the next game, her coach said, “Kara, I can’t let you do that – I saw what happened to you. There’s no way you can play. There’s something wrong with you.”

Instead, he put her in charge of the scorebook. “No one could understand what I wrote. My notes were completely illiterate that day,” Kara recalled, “And I couldn’t follow the game. I kept asking my teammates for strikes and fouls and pitch count. And they kept looking at me and asking ‘Are you okay?’”

After those games, her behavior was just as uncharacteristic for a Polar Bear who just came out of winter hibernation. Kara had no desire to bask out in the sun. She didn’t want to talk because she couldn’t follow conversations. And all she wanted to do was sleep after the team dinners. Yet she thought she was fine.

A week later, the trainers at Bowdoin gave her a 20-minute treadmill test to see if she was ready to play again. Like a trooper, she got through the test, but then she felt like a frat boy who just indulged in too much of a keg. She collapsed by the pool, felt extremely nauseous and thought she might pass out. “That’s when I realized how hurt I was…I took a plane home to Massachusetts,” she recalled, “My dad picked me up at the airport and drove me home right away.”

She stayed home for a few days and tried to enjoy Easter with her family. Kara still couldn’t follow conversations and had an overwhelming desire to sleep. When she returned to school, it took all her energy to walk to class. She took breaks on the way and felt sick. By the time she got there, she was too tired to hold her head up. She gave up on walking to the dining hall. Her friends brought her food to the dorm. Kara became completely reclusive. Noise gave her headaches. She couldn’t even watch television.

Even the smallest decisions became difficult for her. “I didn’t know when to shower or when to eat. I didn’t know how to plan my day,” Kara explained, “Which was weird because I’m a really big planner. I’d call my mom and ask, ‘Should I shower?’ And she’d answer, ‘Kara, what’s wrong with you?’” It turned out that Kara had a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Her coaches and school administrators recommended she take the rest of the semester off to get the treatment she needed.

Instead of taking finals, she spent the rest of the spring and summer taking neuropsych and hearing exams. She took a part-time job over the summer, but even that proved to be difficult. Kara had to re-learn how to do a lot of things.

When she returned to school in the fall, it became apparent she still wasn’t as sharp as before. She started out with four classes, but her neurologist suggested that she drop two of them. One was a classical music class. Kara had a tough time following the music and processing what she was hearing. “I couldn’t multi-task at all,” Kara admitted.

She saw a speech pathologist regularly in September who guided her through the process of becoming a student athlete again. Kara re-learned how to take notes – only writing what she absolutely needed to know later. She learned how to regroup if she lost her concentration in the middle of a lecture.

Kara was also plagued with nightly nightmares until January. If she was lucky, she got five hours of sleep. Some nights, she didn’t sleep at all. It’s a common frustration that goes with TBI.

A year later, Kara was finally starting to feel like herself again. She took a full course load and played with her team again. She even won her first three games on the mound.

Yet she still deals with the lingering affects of her TBI. She’s always been a consummate planner, but her to-do list today looks a tad different than the average person’s. She writes down the basic tasks to complete each day. And since she’s making up for lost time at school, each day is packed:

5:30-7:30 Workout a the gym
7:30-8:00 Breakfast and shower
8:30-4:30 Work
5:00 – Dinner
5:45-10:00 p.m. Summer school (Statistics and Chemistry) – plus an hour round-trip commute
10:30 – Homework, then bed

Like so many comebacks, Kara’s is more than physical. It’s mental. And it’s life changing. “With my head injury, I’ve decided to go into neuroscience,” she said with more than just a hint of enthusiasm, “I realize I have it a lot better off than a lot of people, so I’m not complaining. The brain is fascinating to me now.”

NOTE: If you have a good comeback story, please contact me at sixtwothreetries@gmail.com. I’d like to interview you. I hope this will be one of many Comeback Kid stories. Here’s why.

Congrats to the Champ!

This weekend 734’s Dad clinched the mountain bike California State Series for cat 1, single-speed. I knew it was a big race for him and found myself having some pre-race butterflies, even though I wasn’t competing. I did have to be on since I was the water bottle girl for him, his brother Brad, at the last minute, James. They all did great out there. As James would say, “They killed it!”

The Comeback Kid: #13 in a Series

On June 3, 1969, twenty-six year old Dennis Tapp was working the graveyard shift at a gas station in Vallejo, California. Three men walked into the station brandishing guns. He gave them all the money out of the cash register, the blue chip stamps, and his wallet. Then one of the robbers instructed him to turn around. Dennis felt the first bullet hit him in the middle of his back. He experienced a floating sensation when he was hit with another four bullets. Another man was murdered.

After the men left, Dennis was able to reach for the phone and request help from the operator. The police arrested the group right away. They were sentenced to life in prison, and later released in 1988. The ABC News program 20/20 contacted him to appear on a special called “Life After Death Row” and he was able to meet his assailant face to face. Despite everything Dennis has been through, he is not for the death penalty.

Dennis went through a lot. When he arrived at the hospital, he could only move one toe. He was paralyzed from the waist down. His physical therapist had hope that he would walk again. He had excruciating pain from the spinal cord injury. “But I didn’t let the pain get to me,” he recalled.

He spent the next six months in the hospital, working on his mobility. In the rehabilitation gym, he used parallel bars to balance himself. He wore braces around his knees and a belt with a handle so his physical therapist could hold him up as he attempted to walk. He could not feel much below his feet. His weight dropped from 156 lbs. to 112 lbs.

When Dennis left the hospital, he walked out using polio crutches. He still needed a wheelchair for another two years. Then, after a year and a half, he progressed from polio crutches to canes. And after another year, he was able to walk without any assistance. “I kept thinking positively. I learned how to walk and then years later ride a bicycle,” he explained.

Mind you, Dennis had only been on a bicycle twice in his life. He never really learned how to ride one before. By 1980, he was feeling out of shape and decided to do something about it. “One day with my warped sense of humor, I decided to buy one of those K-Mart specials, a Huffy. So I rode that bike on the sidewalks to get home. That 15-minute ride from K-Mart to my home was a workout,” he admitted.

Since Dennis still had 30-40% paralysis below his waist, he had to lean to the left, his stronger side, to get on and off the bike. He gradually built up his stamina by going a mile further a day. “After a while, I realized I didn’t like that Huffy. It probably weighed 35 or 40 lbs. It was a heavy bike. I decided to buy a 10-speed Peugeot for $400 with all the bells and whistles. Then I found out about toe clips. It took me about a week to get used to them, but everything was a lot easier with those toe clips,” he recalled.

Dennis learned how to cycle well. He could spin 90 rpms. He could stand up on the bike and sprint up hills. “I worked up to 30 or 40 miles a day, then up to 50, 60, 70 miles per day. After a while, it seemed easy. So in 1982, I decided to bicycle across the United States on the Bicentennial Trail which is 4200 miles,” he explained, “I wanted to do something to prove that I wasn’t disabled.”

He bought panniers for his bike and gave himself a budget of $10 per day. People treated him well. He made 200 friends along the way. They invited him to spend the night in their homes, schools, and even jails. Coffee shops and restaurants piled extra food on his plate when they saw him pull up on his bike. He has fond memories of stacks of pancakes the size of plates. “They rolled out the red carpet for me,” he admitted, “The thing I looked forward to the most was a hot bath.” What’s his advice for anyone bicycling across the United States? “Go with the wind. Go from west to east in the summer,” he answered. “I hit heavy 70 mph, hurricane force winds in Wyoming and Montana. They were at my back. I flew over the Rockies. It was fun.” Most of the time, he averaged 12-15 mph with his bike weighing 70 lbs, loaded with gear. Some days he only traveled a block. One day, he rode as far 165 miles (by accident). The entire trip took him three months.

When he returned to Oregon, he got into walking. He managed 3-4 miles per day at first. In 1992, Walking Magazine honored him as the Walker of the Year. After a couple of failed attempts at a marathon due to illnesses, he completed the Portland Marathon in 7 1/2 hours.

A triathlete friend turned him on to hiking mountains. Together, they climbed all of the highest peaks in Oregon, including South Sister, Mount Thielsen, and Diamond Peak. He also climbed the majority of Mount Whitney in California with his wife, but had to stop due to a severe headache from the altitude.

Today at the age of 66, he uses a cane again, but it doesn’t stop him from getting around. Dennis continues to walk in 5ks, 10ks, and half marathons. And what his advice for athletes who are getting over their injuries? “Think positively! You have to see yourself getting better,” he explained, “It’s more than physical. It’s mental. You have to think positively.”

NOTE: If you have a good comeback story, please contact me at sixtwothreetries@gmail.com. I’d like to interview you. I hope this will be the first of many Comeback Kid stories. Here’s why.

Congrats, Chris!

My buddy, Chris, completed Ironman Japan on Sunday. I met Chris at the master’s swim club I trained with my first year of triathlon. It was like swimming next to a powerboat. Even though he was in the next lane, he made a powerful wake. So guess who was first out of the water in his age group? Yeah, he smoked the swim in 53:56. He finished the race in 11:34:52. As you can tell, he’s pretty strong on every leg of the course. I often spot him getting his runs in on the trails.

He’s a great source for advice. Chris calmed me down before my first half-Ironman when I was a little freaked out about starting behind the pro women for Operation Rebound. I was afraid the good, young swimmers would plow over me. He reminded me that good swimmers would find that a complete waste of energy and risky. Hearing that from a good swimmer helped. And he was right.

The dude has done a bunch of Ironmans, including Ironman New Zealand, Ironman Australia, Ironman Lanzarote, Ironman Brazil, Ironman Germany, Ironman Wisconsin, and Ironman France. I took this picture of him three weeks ago. It was great to see him.