Lynne Cox, My Favorite Athlete
by Dana-Susan Crews
Imagine standing in 32-degree temperatures wearing nothing but a swimsuit for 25 minutes. Yikes! That kind of cold might sting. Now imagine being immersed in 32-degree waters and swimming a mile into Antarctica for 25 minutes in nothing but a swimsuit, cap and goggles.
For Swimming Hall of Famer Lynne Cox, she doesn't have to imagine it. She lived it. As the very first person ever to swim the Antarctic mile, she revolutionized the sport of long distance, open water swimming. Her book Swimming to Antarctica is one that is filled with impressive feats. It's hard to believe what all she has conquered.
Cox's swimming adventures began at the age of 9 when she was able to endure distances adults couldn't even endure. She broke the English Channel record two years in a row at ages 15 and 16. In 1987, during the Cold War, with permission from Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, she became the first person to swim the Bering Strait. Her swim began in Alaska and continued for more than two hours through almost freezing waters into the Soviet Union.
According to Gorbachev, "It took one brave American just two hours to swim from one of our countries to another. We saw on television how sincere and friendly the meeting was between our people and the Americans when she stepped onto the Soviet shore. She proved by her courage how close to each other our peoples live."
Cox has been studied by medical professionals for years and finished her cold water swims with a team of medical experts monitoring for hypothermia. Most people would not survive 25 minutes in 32-degree waters. In fact, in one study, she and others were asked to immerse their hands in 32-degree water for more than 20 minutes. While the others were shouting and banging their dry fist on the table, Cox focused on a large clock in the room and engaged in positive self talk. She never lost focus and when asked if it hurt, she said it hurt a lot, but her will was stronger than her pain.
With 34% body fat equally distributed through her body and extra thick skin she calls "blubber", it is believed that she has the perfect body for these cold water swims. Cox's story is fascinating and one you might find incredibly inspirational. To purchase her book, click HERE.
I wrote the following story based on a caregiver's attempt to run for Team In Training. With her permission, I published this at the LLS and have reposted it here. Minor details were changed to protect her anonymity. Being a caregiver is challenging. Often caregivers feel helpless and they need love and support just as much as the patients. Caregivers, you inspire me and you are my heroes.
It was a cold, gray morning. Jen and I met at the park at 5:00 and set out on a 14 mile run. We were training for our very first marathon. Almost immediately after I got out of my car, I lost feeling in my fingers and toes. My face felt like an ice block. But I was determined not to let the frigid morning steal my long run. We got started right away.
About 10 minutes into the run, my left knee started aching. I casually mentioned it to Jen. No big deal. It had been bothering me for a few weeks now. Jen and I slowly ran together, not warming up at all, but enjoying each other’s company and talking about everything under the sun.
But the farther we got on the run, the more my knee hurt. I was cold and tired and my knee hurt. We were only a couple of miles into a 14 mile run and I wondered how I could endure another 12 miles. My head was spinning and for a moment, I thought I might faint. “I can't go on,” I screamed at Jen. Where did that come from? Why was I screaming? I’m no drama queen.
Jen seemed shocked. I typically remain calm and a little pain in my knee wasn't something to stop me. But there I was screaming and next thing you know, I was crying. Not a little calm silent thing, but out loud with actual tears flowing down my cold cheeks. I sat on the ground in the running trail and sobbed, Jen grabbed me and held me tight. “My knee,” I screamed, “my knee!”
As my body shook from pain, she held me tighter. The crying was out of control. As I kept saying “my knee”, Jen just held me for a while and then after I started calming down a little, she quietly whispered in my ear, “This isn't about your knee. This is about Greg.” I started crying again.
She was right. My true pain wasn't some tingle in my left knee. My pain came from a much deeper place than a running injury. For the past 10 months I had watched my husband suffer through chemotherapy and radiation treatments. And now we were facing his bone marrow transplant in hopes that it might cure his leukemia. I had not until this exact moment realized how much his cancer had been hurting me. I hadn't noticed myself or my own pain at all, not since the morning almost a year before when we sat in a doctor’s office and heard the news that his blood was full of cancer.
Greg and I had been married for nine years. Our daughter was six years old. We lived a simple, but good life in a small house at the end of a quiet neighborhood where kids still play outdoors until the sun goes down. Greg was a hard-working man and I was a part-time teacher's aid at my daughter's school. I didn't think about how good our life was because I was too busy living it, just enjoying our family and friends and the joy of living.
His diagnosis shook us. In some ways, it felt like it had been crushing us. He remained positive while I just got busy. Every moment of every day, I was busy. There were germs to keep out of my home. There was laundry that had to be sterilized. There were homework assignments to help my daughter finish. Then there were PIC lines to clean and temperatures to monitor and many, many trips to the hospital. Sometimes I'd spend hours sitting in waiting rooms reading (trying to read because my mind always wandered to dark places).
Every time Greg needed me, I jumped up and served. And over the months, he grew weaker and more frail, so he needed me more and more as time passed. I never complained. I just worked. From sun up til sun down and sometimes through the night, I worked myself ragged. It was my number one duty to be the caregiver. I did all kinds of research on acute leukemia and ways to better tolerate treatments. I learned about foods you can and cannot eat during treatments. I learned about statistics and survival rates. I studied the psychological impact of a cancer diagnosis on a 32-year-old man.
It should have dawned on me that I was so exhausted and drained of energy, but I was too busy to notice. So I pressed through and pushed myself to do more than humanly possible. That included signing up to run a marathon. It seemed like the perfect step in this journey. After all, I would be running 26.2 miles to raise funds for leukemia research and I would be showing cancer that it couldn't have control of me or my family.
But there I was on that cold, bitter morning feeling completely out of control. The months of difficulty and stress on me had finally caught up and I was sitting in a running trail crying like a baby. And my great hero of the moment was Jen. She wrapped her arms around me and let my tears stain her running jacket. Without trying to convince me to get up, without worrying about her own training, she just held me and let me get it all out.
I can't tell you how long I sat there crying, but I can tell you that for the first time since the cancer journey had begun, I felt a release. I'd been a caregiver and now the caregiver was receiving some care. I will always love Jen for that. Finally, I got up and we slowly got back to running. It hit me that the knee didn't really hurt that bad after all. We finished our 14 mile run in just over three hours and then went for coffee.
A couple of months later, I crossed the finish line in my first marathon. When the volunteer handed me that medal, I shot my arms up in the air with the feeling of victory. The real winner in the race finished in just over two hours that morning. It took me more than five hours. But I felt like the winner. I felt like running that marathon was proof to me and to leukemia that anything is possible.
Today, Greg has been in remission for four years. He's strong and healthy and in training for his very first marathon! He inspires so many cancer patients who hope to achieve a remission status and go out to run a marathon. I can't wait to be there to cheer him across the finish line. It will be a moment of intense pride and a feeling of great victory.
There have been many moments in our cancer journey that stand out. Some were sweet. Others were painful. But for me, one of the greatest moments was that one on a cold, cloudy day when I fell to the ground and my friend loved me through my pain. Being a caregiver has been the greatest challenge of my life so far, but I wouldn't trade this experience for anything. I'm grateful for the strength I've witnessed in my husband, in my daughter, and in me. And I've been so privileged to know people like Jen who was a great hero in our cancer journey simply by her love.
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