Pauline, with her husband Bob (also a runner), at Night Town, in Cleveland OH. They drove from Toronto to Cleveland, to provide much appreciated support for FitOldDog prior to his second aortic surgery, in 2013. Photo with permission.
PLEASE NOTE: If you have aortic disease, don’t undertake any kind of sport or exercise before you have carried out your own benefit/risk assessment, with the guidance of your medical advisors.
In the fall of 2010, I started this blog, in the hopes of finding another Ironman-distance triathlete with an abdominal aortic aneurysm stent graft. I am yet to find such an athlete, but the first person to respond to my blog was Pauline (runner, with an AAA 4.5 cm at the time), who put me in touch with the Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA) Facebook Page. I finally had someone to talk to; someone who understood the challenges of being an actively competing athlete with an AAA.
Since then, Pauline and her husband, Bob, visited me in Cleveland, in December, 2013, to provide moral support for my stent repair – turned out to be a dangerous, 3.5-hour surgery; I broke my stent (Rupert) in a bike wreck – who says people with AAA can’t have fun? This was extremely kind of them, and much appreciated.
I have always hoped to enter a race with Pauline. Think of it, two AAA cases in the same triathlon! And now, Pauline has just signed up for the 2015 Eagleman Half Ironman Race, to be held in Cambridge, Maryland on June, 14th, and I’m already registered for the same race.
Aortically-challenged people. Place your bets!
It’s graft versus stent – the race is on!
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