Marathon Training to End Stroke; Or Gimmee Your Dollars and No One Gets Spammed

My father suffered a massive debilitating stroke in 2002. It has left him largely immobilized and dependent upon his family and caretakers for many of his basic needs. My dad's always been bright, funny, compassionate, generous and vaguely embarrassing in that way that parents often can be when they're clever and enjoy the minor mortification of their children. The stroke has left him with most of his mental faculties – his intelligence, his wit, his kindness, but without most of his physical acuity. He can't indulge in any of the hobbies that brought joy and meaning to his life – woodworking, playing the guitar, cooking, walking his beloved dog, going on trips with his wife.

Modern medicine worked a sort of miracle on my father – he's alive. I say that completely without irony. Probably, he shouldn't have been. The doctors told us he wouldn't survive, that he would go into a coma and not come out of it. Our gratitude, my gratitude that he is still here is immeasurable.

My father's stroke impacted everyone around him – my step-mother, my step-siblings, their familes, my grandfather, even my own mother, my relatives on my mother's side. Watching someone go, overnight, from active, vibrant, challenging and amazing to completely dependent and utterly changed is terrifying, it's heart-wrenching, and it's all too common in our current society.

It changed everyone's life without a single warning.

Genetics worked against my dad. Lifestyle choices worked against him. Medicine worked against him (a small hole in his heart that should have been found when he was a child allowed the blood clot through that caused the stroke).

I have struggled with many aspects of my relationship with him – are divergent and completely similar personalities; his need to have his way constantly; his reluctance to accept his situation and make the steps and strides I think he should – but in all that, I am terribly, terribly happy that he is still here and making me utterly nuts.

This was not the only medical scare that I, or my family, faced over the next few years. Ironically, they all involved blood clots, involved that same tiny little inability of the body to do what it was supposed to do.

Several months ago, when looking for a way to give some of my time and energy to a cause, I came across the training program for the Stroke Foundation. It only took me a minute to decide that it was something I wanted to participate in. Training for a marathon (or in my case, more likely, a half marathon) while raising money to fund research for something that has immediately touched my life and those of my loved ones? Not something that took a lot of thought. (Those of you who know me, who know my attitude towards running if not being chased, stop laughing right this minute! You can walk the marathon too, or walk/run it!)

This was a way to change my own life and habits, and support my father in a way I have not always been able to do face to face. While raising money to fund research may not seem very personal, it is, for me, a way to answer many of his fears and hurts over the years – that I am not on his side, that I am unsupportive, that I'm too angry to be there for him. He isn't wrong. He's not right either. I am angry that he set himself up for this to happen. I am equally angry at his body, at fate, at everything that led up to and allowed this to happen.

But I love him, and I want him to know how much. Plus, I want other people who face this issue, who've watched friends and loved ones combat this issue to have more options, more knowledge, more possibility.

So, I'm doing something that makes me vaguely uncomfortable (asking for donations) to do something that will make me physically uncomfortable (marathoning) in order to hopefully provide something for others that will make their lives more comfortable.

My dad was relatively young - 54. It's something that can happen at any age, and certain factors make the risk that much greater (when he was in the hospital, a woman only a few years younger than me had suffered a similar stroke to my father's).

The website for my donation page is here. Info about the American Stroke Association is here.

Regardless of whether or not you donate, I appreciate the support and the forum to put this out there into the vast world of the internets.