Today a very good friend at work asked
me the simplest of questions: “Why do you run, Mike?” Before I
could answer, he immediately followed with, “I'd only run if it was
to save my life.”
As I answered him I realized that the
time has come for me to finish the last chapter in my story about how
I got here, and to explain the mysterious fortune cookie I have
mentioned.
I will try to keep this as short as
possible, as I'm not sure yet what all this means yet for me.
When we left off, after 4 months of me
waiting to hear if Team Fox was going to have a team in the 2014
Marathon, I finally found out, that indeed, they were. That was
around 3pm. Near 5pm I spoke with Mom on the phone, and she let me
know the news about Dad's diagnosis. It seemed like some sort of big
cosmic arrow pointing the way for me, and I knew everything would
work out if I followed.
I should further explain here that my
father has been forgetting things more and more over the last five
years or so. Only short term things, but enough to concern everyone,
including him. Then he started to have a shaky gate when he walked.
His regular doctors told him it was just getting older, and possibly
an inner-ear issue.
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Then one day I heard a wonderful article on NPR about something called Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus, or NPH. It
covered Dad's symptoms and a few more, and the doctor being
interviewed explained that a decent percentage of patients who have
been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or dementia just have this
condition, which is mostly treatable. I went on a tear trying to get
Dad to go to the right doctors, and finally, at the insistence of Mom
and one of my brothers, Dad got tested.
I explained from the start that this
was an outside chance, and for nobody to get their hopes up, even
though I secretly held hope. Sadly, the doctors at UF confirmed it
was dementia, and on top of that, it was Parkinson's Syndrome (PS).
PS is a little different than Parkinson's Disease. PS is another
degenerative neurological illness where the patient gets sporadic and
individual symptoms of Parkinson's Disease. Very little is known
currently about it, but I have faith that an answers lies in finding
a solution to Parkinson's!
That is why I have redoubled my efforts
for this cause. Yes I get to run in a very exclusive marathon, but I
could have done that without trying to raise so much money for
research.
So why then do I run? I have to answer
with a question.
How many people get to do something
they love, for someone they love, and share that love with the world
for the betterment of all mankind
That is why I run, to save lives.
It also doesn't hurt that around 7pm,
that random night, I opened a fortune cookie, and read this:
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