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Stafford woman with Lou Gehrig’s disease runs last race

Stafford resident Deborath McGee, who is living with Lou Gehrig’s disease, ran the New York City Marathon on Sunday.


BY NUZHAT NAOREEN
Media General News Service
Published: November 6, 2008

NEW YORK — Deborah McGee’s legs started feeling weak a little before the halfway mark at Sunday’s New York City Marathon. Her breathing labored and her body ached. But it wasn’t enough to stop her.

After 25 competitive races, the marathon was McGee’s toughest challenge and her last.

McGee, 50, of Stafford, was diagnosed last year with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which destroys the motor nerve cells that operate the muscles and leads to paralysis. For McGee, who said she loves the feeling of completing a marathon because it’s a distance not many can accomplish, Sunday’s race was a chance to experience the thrill of a competitive run one final time — before the disease spreads to her legs.

“The fact that I was able to do this was a gift,” said McGee, who crossed the finish line of the 26.2-mile marathon in five hours and 45 minutes with tears streaming down her face.

McGee said she already has started to feel the impact of her disease on her hands. She can no longer hold a hair dryer or turn the key to start her car.

Her doctors cautioned her against running in the marathon because it could cause muscle damage to her legs and feet, she said.

“Muscles I break down will not rebuild,” said McGee, who is married and has three daughters.

However, she decided to take the risk because she already had been accepted into the marathon, which uses a lottery system to select a portion of its participants.

“Her choice to ignore medical advice and run this marathon is pure McGee, head-on push through tough,” said James Thull, president of the Fredericksburg Area Running Club, of which McGee is a member.

McGee said she started running about eight years ago to get more exercise. The more she ran, the more she enjoyed it, she said. She entered her first marathon in 2001, and the average time it took her to complete a race — before she was diagnosed — was around four hours. Within a year of learning she had ALS, her average time increased by two hours.

“My running has changed so significantly in the last year, that it is a spotlight shining on my illness and what it’s doing to me,” said McGee, who added that the support of her family and friends has helped her to stay positive as her body weakens.

McGee said when she first learned of her diagnosis, she looked ahead to what she would need to complete before the ALS advanced.

“I put my game face on,” she said. “I looked at them and I said ‘I guess I better get all my traveling and marathon running done pretty quick.’”

The average survival rate of an ALS patient is about two to five years, said Gary Wosk, media-relations manager for the ALS Association. About 30,000 people in the United States have the disease at any one time, said Wosk, who added that most patients require a feeding tube and a ventilator to survive in the later stages of the disease.

McGee said she fears what she will have to face as the disease progresses throughout her body.

“I don’t mind dying — everybody dies. What I mind is being paralyzed little by little. Losing function in my hands, in my feet. I won’t be able to swallow: I won’t be able to breathe,” she said. “To have an active mind inside a still, immovable body is probably the single most frightening thing I can imagine.”

However, she refuses to let her illness bring her down and plans to continue running noncompetitively for as long as her body can sustain it.

“If it takes my mind, if it takes my spirit, then it has won,” she said. “If my face is going to freeze,” she said, “It’s going to freeze with a smile on it.”

Nuzhat Naoreen is a special correpondent for Media General’s Richmond Times-Dispatch.

http://www.staffordcountysun.com/scs...st_race/24105/