Left: Relearning how to stand in 2004. Right: My first Spartan Race in 2016
“Anyone can give up, it’s the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that’s true strength.” -Unknown
It was a little over a month into my hospitalization period back in the summer of 2004, and I was still on life support and paralyzed from the medication that was many times stronger than morphine. My body was slowly healing from the catastrophic injuries that it sustained from the car crash: heart shifting across the chest; collapsed lungs; shattered ribs, pelvis, and clavicle; vital organs that were either lacerated or failing. My body was in critical condition and constantly shutting down. I would need to be resuscitated eight times throughout my time in the coma.
After the fourteen life-saving operations, I slowly started to come back to life through life-giving medicine and 36 blood transfusions. In the later stages of the coma, I could hear and see what was going on around me. I observed the people that were taking care of me, especially my parents. Looking up at them on both sides of my hospital bed, I soon realized that the pain they were experiencing was a million times worse than what I was going through. They didn’t have the morphine to shield the pain like I did. Growing up, my mom and dad were not only my role models, but they were my friends. They were always there to guide me in the right direction. I wished with all my strength that I could get better for them, but my body wasn’t responding.
After weeks agonizingly went by, the suffering was overwhelming. In my darkest moments in life when I was on my deathbed and saying my final prayers, it was if my parents knew what I was thinking. Some memories that we experience in life are permanently interwoven into the fabric of our mind. That afternoon, my parents walked in my room and it was different - I saw the fire in their eyes. My mom stood by my sliding glass door with tissues held up to her face, and my dad slowly walked up to my hospital bed. He placed his hand over the spiderweb of tubes and wires that covered my chest. With every fiber in his being he mustered the last remaining strength that he had to guide me away from the darkness that I was falling into. He told me to fight for myself, for him and my mom, for my future wife, and future children. Childhood memories started to race through my mind. I also thought back to when I was a young boy and he came home from his operation to remove the Cancer from his body. Even after his surgery, after my mom and uncles helped him into the house to sit down, he walked over to the stairway, leaning heavily on the cane that supported him. He placed the cane next to the railing and stood there to show me that he was going to be okay. Now it was my turn to show that same type of strength. I had a lot of lifesaving medicine flowing through my body, but my parents love played a very important factor in my survival.
My dad pushing me in my wheelchair at my rehab center in 2004
All throughout my intensive physical therapy and rehabilitation, my parents were there supporting me and motivating me. Every achievement and milestone was brought about through their guidance. From learning how to sit upright, to learning to stand on my own without restraint belts holding me up, and then walking by sliding my feet across the floor a few inches at a time. They were there. Months went by and I was slowly getting back on my feet, back in the pool, and back to living again. The recovery was finally complete three years after leaving ICU when I crossed the finish line of the 2007 Hawaii Ironman triathlon, which gave my parents and I the breath of life all over again.
Several years went by and I added over 40 more endurance events to my schedule: triathlons, marathons, and ultramarathons. In the hospital, when my heart was racing and the blood was pumping, they were signs that I was dying, now they were signs that I was living. My parents were there at every event, cheering from the start line to the finish line. In 2016 I participated in a 5 mile swim for cancer research and my dad kayaked next to me to celebrate 25 years of being cancer-free. Around the same time I also competed in my first Spartan Race, and my dad showed a really strong interest in this endurance event. He was very athletic growing up, and the Spartan Race really appealed to him because of the endurance, obstacles, teamwork, and the pure challenge of it. We made the decision soon after that we were going to compete in a Spartan Race together – father and son.
This is my tenth year in endurance sports and I’m still very new to Obstacle Course Racing, but I’ve been really enjoying my training and preparation. This year I’m planning on earning the Spartan Race Trifecta by completing the three main distances of the Spartan Race, and most of all, I’m looking forward to participating in a Spartan Race alongside my dad to celebrate life and his 25+ years being cancer-free. My parents have been at every race I’ve ever competed in, and they’re always cheering me on from the sidelines so it will be very meaningful to be able to cheer on my dad the way he has cheered me on since I was a young boy.
Just like in life, we will not know what challenge will be around the next corner, or whether it will be a hill or a valley, or what obstacle we will be facing throughout our journey, but through determination and teamwork, we will overcome and appreciate every breath, heartbeat, and step towards the destination.
Training with my dad for his first Spartan Race