Meeting Sarah Grand

Last week, I met Sarah Grand.  Sarah just started Crossfit.

2 weeks ago, she did the Scotiabank Toronto Marathon.  

Sarah's a vegan.

She had knee issues for the whole month leading up to the marathon.

She didn't eat at all that day; her last meal was 7pm the night before.

Oh, and she was on chemo the whole time.

Below is her story.  

Last October after having moved to Ottawa, I decided to sign up for one of the Running Room's running clinics.  I didn’t know very many people in Ottawa, and so I figured it would be a good way to meet people with similar interests.  I started off with a 10km clinic and by January I was ready to try my hand at the half-marathon group.

I was a bit nervous, and wasn't quite sure how it would be training through the freezing cold winters in Ottawa.  I had only done one 10km race, and the whole half marathon seemed to be a bit of a daunting task, but I was ready to give it a shot. 

By March I had met several good friends in the clinic and started to look forward to our long Sunday runs even though most mornings it was freezing! 

As the race approached, I battled with a few minor injuries, but kept on with the training.  Getting out for the runs made me feel great inside and out!

On April 30th, just four weeks before the Ottawa ING Half Marathon (my goal race), I went out for some speed training on the track with my group.  I had a horrible headache that particular night, and by the time we started the speed drills I felt myself getting a bit disoriented from the pain.  Midway through the drills I got separated from my group and ended up running alone.  By the end of the session my head hurt so much I thought I might pass out.  I managed to get myself back to my car and immediately drove home.  Once at home I started to panic a bit, and so I decided to call my boyfriend.  As we were on the phone, suddenly he heard a loud THUMP and then nothing.  Thankfully he had a key to my place and so he rushed over immediately and found me unconscious on my living room floor.

I was rushed to the hospital and given a cat scan.  When the doctor came in I could tell from the look on her face that the news wasn't good.  "Are your parents here dear?" she asked.  I shook my head to indicate no.  Well I have some bad news, and I need someone here with you before I can tell you she said.  She called my boyfriend in instead and then delivered the news.  It hit me hard and fast, but I was strangely calm.  I had been diagnosed with a brain tumour and was going to need emergency surgery.

 How could this happen I thought?  I'm only 23, I'm so healthy, and I have my whole life ahead of me. 

I met with the surgeon the next morning, and by that time my parents had arrived in town.  I was going to need brain surgery and I was going to need it soon.  The location of the tumour made it difficult to remove, so after some thought, the surgeon decided it was best if he did the surgery awake. 

AWAKE???  Are you insane???  This is the stuff of horror movies.  I begged and pleaded with him.   But doctor, I have a race in 3 weeks and I’ve been training all winter for this!  Do you think I’ll still be able to do it???  No he said, you won’t be running for several months if not longer.  Clearly this race didn’t mean as much to him as it did to me.

Six day later, on May 7^th, 2008 I was rolled into the operating room.  My surgery took close to 11 hours, and as planned, I was awake for the whole thing.  I was able to talk, and move my hands and legs somewhat, but my head was bolted to the table to prevent it from moving. 

Surprisingly, I had a pretty fun time in the OR.  I had met some great nurses on the neurosurgery floor of the hospital and a few of them came down to visit me during surgery.  We talked and laughed, listened to Mariah Carey on my iPod stereo and even took pictures!  About 6 hours into the surgery I asked the anesthesiologist if I could call my Dad.  He was stunned by the question, but excited at the same time.  He went and got a phone and sure enough I called my Dad from the OR to give him an update on the surgery. 

Closer to the end of the surgery some of the freezing started to wear off and the pain came rushing in like a tidal wave.  The anesthesiologist rushed to give me some drugs through my IV, but since I had been awake for the surgery, I didn’t have any breathing tubes in.  This posed a bit of a problem, and so for the last part of the surgery the anesthesiologist sat in front of me and acted as my breathing coach to make sure that I wouldn’t stop breathing. 

The first few days after the surgery were pretty brutal.  It felt as though someone had beaten me over the head with a sledgehammer.  I was taking morphine every couple hours and I tried desperately to get comfortable enough to sleep without the right side of my head touching the pillow.  My Mom tried to get me to eat a bit, but I couldn’t open my mouth wide enough to get a spoon in from all the swelling.  Not only that, but the surgery had also affected my visual pathway and so I kept seeing strange flashing lights out of the corner of my right eye.  I was told this was normal, but I couldn’t help but find it extremely distracting.

After a few days I started to feel better, and by the weekend I was allowed to go home.  The doctors said that I should try and walk a little if possible and so the day after I got home my parents and I headed out for a walk.  With each step I felt stronger.  “I can do this” I thought.  I will walk everyday and on the 24^th I will run the race.

Unfortunately my training plans came to an immediate halt when my surgeon advised me that there was to be NO RUNNING!  My brain would take quite some time to heal and running could cause some potentially serious problems with all the swelling.  I was devastated.  This race meant the world to me, and I wanted nothing more than to complete it.

A few days later the pathology report was in and once again we headed back to the surgeon’s office.  The news was bad….very bad.  I had a stage 4 cancerous tumour (the most aggressive type of tumour) and the chances of regrowth were high.  I was going to need to start rounds of chemotherapy and radiation immediately.

It’s as though the news kept getting worse!  First, no race and now cancer. I wasn’t sure how much more I could handle. 

I spent the afternoon feeling sorry for myself, but by the next morning my mood had changed.  They don’t know me, I thought.  They don’t know what I’m capable of.  I don’t care what they think!  I’m going to do this race and I’m going to beat this cancer!

Fourteen days after the surgery I started chemo and radiation.  The chemo wasn’t so bad, but the first radiation treatment was terrible and I wasn’t sure how I would hold up.  The radiation technician told me to expect to suffer from severe fatigue during the treatment, and that most patients take two to three naps per day during the treatment and for several months afterwards. 

You won’t have the energy to go for a walk, let alone run she told me.  I could tell by the look on her face that she felt sorry for me, and figured I was too naïve to know what I was up against.  Even the strongest and healthiest people get knocked down from these treatments she lectured,  but my motto was and still is “it’s not how many times you fall down in life that matters….it’s how many times you get back up.”  And that’s exactly what I was going to do.  Life might have temporarily knocked me down, but damnit, I was going to keep getting back up.  It was going to take a hell of a lot more than a brain tumour to take me down! 

So on the morning of the race, just 17 days after my surgery and already on chemo and radiation I laced up my running shoes and I showed up at the start line.  I didn’t care what they said, if I couldn’t run it, I would walk it!  And walk it I did.  I walked all 21km’s as fast as my two little legs could carry me.  When I hit 20km I took off my ball cap and exposed my semi bald head and then I ran like never before to that finish line.  I ran for all the people who told me that I couldn’t do it, for all the people who said I would be too tired, too weak, too sick.  I crossed that finish line with more emotion than I’ve ever felt in my whole life.  I had done it, I had really done it.  With a time of 2:43:58, I had come in first place in my age category for walkers.

A few days after the race, with a renewed sense of hope, I decided to undertake the mother of all races.  I was going to train for the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in September.  

I was going to do it through the heat of the summer, through the chemo and radiation and through the emotional ups and downs of my hormone therapy.  I had to do it.  I had to prove it to everyone that it could be done, and more importantly than that, I had to prove it to myself.  If I could do this, I could do anything.

To me cancer seemed more like a mental battle than a physical one.  The doctors were quick to tell me all the horrible things that might happen, but if you listen it’s just a self fulfilling prophecy in my opinion.  I guess that’s why I relate to running so well, because it’s sort of the same thing.  Sure, running a marathon is a physical test of endurance, but more than that it’s a mental hurdle.  When you get tired and you’re hurting and you want to give up, you need to be strong enough mentally to push through and keep going.  And that’s what I did, each and everyday of the summer with my mother by my side. 

There were some days where I was exhausted, and others where I felt sick to my stomach.  The chemo caused a lot of stomach upset for the runs, and by a few weeks in, I could no longer eat before going running.  Any attempt at food often lead to a panicked frenzy as we tried to find the closest bathroom.  Instead I started taking along an electrolyte drink similar to Gatorade, and that seemed to help.

Although my Mom had three marathons under her belt, it had been almost a decade since she had last run and I could tell she was overwhelmed.  The distance was too far too soon, and her poor little legs weren’t used to the training.  It was obvious that her whole body ached and as much as I loved her for coming out and doing it with me, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her when I saw her try to walk down the stairs after our long runs.

She was a great sport though, and the best teammate I could have ever asked for.  It didn’t matter how much she was hurting, when it was time to run, she strapped on her shoes and out we went.  We had more fun together running, sweating, complaining and limping than we’d ever had before.

By August I was feeling strong and ready to undertake this huge challenge that lay just six short weeks away.  Then out of nowhere came the knee pain.  It started as a dull ache, but after a week or two, it lead to a throbbing pain on the outside of my knee.  I went to physiotherapy and it turned out that I had illiotibial friction syndrome.  This is NOT what I needed! 

I went religiously for my treatments, and started doing a lot more stretching.  I had taken to using a heating pad, and also starting going for ART (active release technique) therapy.  By September I felt a lot better, but my left knee would still give me problems on the longer runs.

Once again determined to do the race, I pushed through.  I iced, I heated, I stretched, I rested, I did everything and anything.  I was too close to give up now.  I was going to do that race and if I had to crawl across the finish line then so be it, as long as I finished.

There had been a time when doing it fast meant everything to me, but after what I had endured over the summer, none of that mattered anymore.  I didn’t care if I was faster than my teammates or if I could qualify for Boston, all I cared about was finishing.  In the end, you’re only competing against yourself right?  And the fact that I was even attempting it on radiation and chemo was more than most can say.

The day finally arrived.  The morning started off cool, but the forecast called for a warm sunny afternoon.  My Mom and I and 15,000 other runners gathered at the start line.  At 7:30am the gun fired and we were off!

For the first 20km I felt great!  My Mom and I were keeping a fast even pace and thankfully my knee wasn’t hurting.  By 25km the sun started to really beat down on us and I cursed myself for not wearing a tank top!  Once we hit 30km the fatigue set in.  I hadn’t eaten before the race and the electrolytes just weren’t giving me enough calories or energy to keep going.  We passed a few gel stations, but not having trained with them, I didn’t want to try them out for the first time on race day.

Once we hit 35km I thought for sure I would have to stop.  I might still be able to finish, but it would have to be walking because there was no way I could keep running.  I was exhausted and over heating and each step took every ounce of my energy. My butt was cramping and my feet were screaming out with pain.

Then we hit the cheering station and hundreds of people who saw the huge scar on my head began cheering out for me!  Go Sarah! Go Sarah!  You can do it!  You’re awesome!!!!  Don’t give up!  It almost brought tears to my eyes, and it certainly did bring tears to my Mothers eyes.  She looked at me and said, “You can do this Sarah, you’re almost there, don’t give up baby.”  And so I closed my eyes and I ran.  I thought of all the doctors and all the nurses who told me that I couldn’t do it, all the people who said my cancer would kill me.  I was going to do it, I had to do it, for me, for them, for anyone who’s ever undergone cancer and knows what it’s like to lie awake at night filled with fear and anxiety about what the future holds.  So I kept on and before long I could see the big signs 700m to go, 500m to go, 200m to go, 100m to go!  I could see it now, I could see the finish!  The fans were cheering, I was going to do it, WE were going to do it.  I grabbed my Mom’s hand and we ran as fast as we could until we crossed that finish line. 

I cannot even begin to explain the euphoria that overtook us as we crossed.  We reached for each other and we hugged, and we cried, and we laughed and we cried and we hugged some more.  We had done it.  We had run 42.2km side by side.  I couldn’t help it, so I looked at my watch, but the time didn’t really matter.  It had taken us 4:44:32, and I couldn’t have been happier.

September 28^th, 2008 is a day I will never forget.  I learned a lot of important lessons over the summer, but more than anything I learned that impossible is nothing.  It doesn’t matter what the challenge is, whether it’s completing a marathon, asking someone out on a date, or beating cancer, if you want it bad enough, you can do it. 

So remember. Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over….she became a butterfly.

-Sarah Grand

Comments

[Sarah P]

Thanks for putting this up. I will remember this everytime I am thinking about not going to the gym because I am tired.

[Brodie]

Sarah, you truly are an amazing young lady whose actions have touched many and continue to be an inspiration..you go gurl!!

[Laura Vardaro - Carmine Bruni]

My dearest Sarah,

You bring joy to our hearts. Sincerely you are a true inspiration. God Bless you and keep you safe.
Forever thinking of you.

[Dawn Morewood]

Sarah you never cease to amaze me, you have such strength, courage and devotion - to say that you are awsesome is an understatement!

[ghislaine mathur]

Congratulations Sarah, I was so excited to hear about you running the marathon with your mom. You are an inspiration to everyone. Keep staying positive and don't ever give up. We Love YOu Honey