Inspirational People

One of the people I look to for inspiration is none other than my cousin, Sandra. Now, first off, she was a pain in the butt when we were teenagers because she HATED the thought of sweating and messing up her magnificently dried, feathered, and hairsprayed hair-do, thus she would not do ANYTHING fun (outside, anyway). Oddly enough, this was probably our only real battle the time during my angsty teen years while living with her, her older brother, and her parents. In fact, we got along well enough to repeat the living together experience in college as roommates. Even then, we each had our own lives with our own friends and did our own thing. This was probably what saved us, as we could come back to the room and chit chat about our days without being totally enmeshed.

After college graduation and marriage for both of us, we still did our own things, but got together frequently. She eventually had a baby and then, tragically, her mother passed away. Our family is tough…we can handle it, right? Well, we did, but not long afterward, she and her husband went on a cruise together and she contracted mono. Still no real big deal…except this mono went on to develop into Guillain-Barre, a syndrome in which the body’s immune system attacks the central nervous system. Most sufferers have difficulty walking and get very weak. Some actually have to go on a ventilator because their diaphragm won’t work right. Fortunately for her, she suffered the milder version and mainly her extremities did not work well. She still managed to work as a charge nurse at her job at the hospital, all while caring for a small child. She very, very gradually got better and a bit stronger. The end result was that she gained a great deal of weight and had no real strength overall. My cousin and her family had a couple of VERY stressful years.

One year, after being tired of being overweight, she took matters into her own hands. She joined Weight Watchers and lost over 50 lbs…and most importantly, she became an “Adult On-set Athlete”. Not only did she train to walk a marathon (26.2 miles), but she began training in tae kwon do, eventually earning a third degree black belt. In addition, she has managed to stay very active and trained to run a half-marathon, as well as numerous 5Ks. She also helped out with the program Girls On the Run to help young girls run through their first 5Ks. Now, she is pushing me (in a good way!) to train for our first ever triathlon. She accompanies me on most of my own madness (such as running a very long fun run New Year’s Eve) and cycling in what must have been a wind chill of -5 this past weekend. She’s also managed to maintain a healthy weight all of these years. From what I can tell, she has no lingering after-affects from her bout with Guillain-Barre.

Being active is relatively “easy” for me, except for the occasional struggles with motivation. To develop into an athlete at an age when most people are giving up their activity in favor of the sedentary life, is to me, more admirable. In Sandra’s case, she had to fight extra hard to even take the step, first by getting past Guillain-Barre, second, losing weight and finally, by not being afraid to try new things.

Bravo, Sandra!