Ten Years Later (21 page)

But the first several days of February unleashed sixty-mile-per-hour winds and minus-twenty-degrees
temperatures. Climbers could not summit until February 9, and not everyone made it
to the top. Diane did, and immediately began to gear up for her next challenge, the
speed ascent.

“I promised everyone that the docs would come home alive,” Diane explains, “that I
wouldn’t take any risks.”

And that’s why Diane made the frustrating but prudent decision to ultimately cancel
the speed attempt. Blizzard conditions, high winds, and below-zero temperatures prompted
her to call off the mission. The doctors had successfully gathered a wealth of physiological
and psychological data on the slow summit; the second mission was too risky.

Interestingly, in Mayo’s written insights about the expedition, the lead doctor discusses
the elusive challenge of learning why some people have a “well-designed persistence
for adaptation.” Dr. Bruce Johnson writes, “Why some people keep striving amid life’s
traumas and others don’t is a perplexing issue.”

Perplexing indeed. What Diane exhibits as an elite athlete, and has since she was
little, will never show up in telemetry data.

“I told the docs I still think it’s what’s up here.” She points to her head. “You
can be the fastest athlete in the world, but if you can’t use it here,” she says,
pointing to her head again, “and know how to keep your shit together, you’re done.
And I really had to keep my shit together when I had my seizures, so I can just keep
it together in the moment. It’s the push, it’s in the head.”

Diane lives in Sedalia, Colorado, elk country, forty minutes south of Denver on thirty-five
acres, where she and Scott raised their three children. A fifty-two-year-old natural
beauty, Diane wears no makeup; she wears her blond hair short and simple. Her skin
has been kissed by the sun and battered by winds that blow where few choose to explore.
Diane is five feet nine, one hundred
and thirty-five pounds—extremely lean but not emaciated. In a constant state of motion
since she was young, Diane’s never comfortable at rest.

But in December 2011, she had no choice. Diane was ordered to sit in a chair with
her right leg prone and to heal. She had endured a severely painful procedure on a
torn Achilles tendon. Doctors and therapists who work with Denver’s professional sports
teams were tasked with getting Diane’s tendon to properly heal using an experimental
technique, the kind of procedure that makes even the toughest athletes cry or use
expletives. By the third session, with several more to go, Diane was in bad shape
and using bad language.

“I was crawling around the house. I was holding my leg,” she describes, “lying on
the floor, cussing my head off.”

In an office setting, doctors drew blood from Diane, separated out the pristine red
blood cells, drew them into a syringe, and, without numbing her, injected the needle
into her Achilles on both sides of her heel. The technique is designed to promote
circulation and healing. The injury was debilitating to Diane’s race schedule and
her psyche. By now you know that she’s not an elite relaxer. To make matters worse,
the ankle injury was not caused by running.

In 2009, Diane had headed out for a routine predawn trail run. “It was four o’clock
in the morning and I was headed for a trail no one even knows about,” Diane says,
“and I get out of my car in the parking lot, and all of a sudden this guy flips on
his headlamp and says, ‘Get the fuck outta here.’ I turned off my headlamp, and as
I was running out of there, I jumped a fence and my foot went into an old fence post
hole, and when I pulled out my foot, that’s when I strained it.”

Diane hid herself and called the police.

“I could see him loading the gun”—she makes the clicking sound of cocking a gun—“looking
around for me, looking in my car. I was lying in the grass thinking,
Get here, get here, get here
.”

Police, who arrived forty-five minutes later, think Diane walked up
on a drug deal. They were never able to track down the gunman. Diane raced every month
after the injury, so it never got a chance to heal.

“I told my friend that if I ever see that son of a bitch again,” she says jokingly,
“I ain’t running from him next time . . . I’m taking him down!”

Extreme physical therapy instead of extreme physical exercise was an exasperating
tradeoff for Diane. She was limited to pool workouts and core exercises. And lots
of quality time with fear.

“There was an underlying,
Wow, what am I gonna do now?
This sport has been so good to me.”

So good, and so time consuming. The sport requires an immense time commitment. Diane’s
typical day unfolds early. While the coffee brews, she laces up one of the fifteen
pairs of running shoes she wears out each year. Out the door by around four
A.M
., Diane grabs a quick carbohydrate (like a muffin) and eats it in her lap while driving.
She often heads to Pikes Peak, altitude 14,110 feet. Up she runs, fourteen miles to
the summit.

“I’ll throw a headlamp on, run up to the top, and I’ll stay up there for a while for
altitude training,” she says. “I’ll run a bunch of back trails that no one knows about,
so I have the whole mountain to myself. It’s kinda nice.”

Hours later, when Diane decides to head back down the mountain, she’ll text her friend
who works with search and rescue in Colorado Springs. The potential for a bear encounter
or a fall is real, so she wants someone to know where she’s training. After logging
twenty to thirty miles by noon, Diane heads home for lunch, always carbs and protein
to refuel the repair of tissue breakdown from her intense workout. Her calorie burn
for the day easily reaches six to seven thousand, so her lunch will include an entire
bag of mixed vegetables that she microwaves, along with tofu, tuna, or chicken and
Greek yogurt. After lunch, Diane tackles e-mails and details on clothing design for
the North Face. She may also need to prepare a presentation for her
work as a North Face traveling speaker. Dinner for her and Scott probably cooked all
day in a Crock-Pot (less chance of burning) or is a simple preparation of fish, salad,
and baked potatoes or rice.

“After dinner I go for the cereal and the ice cream. That’s where the sweet craving
comes in. I don’t even put it in a bowl. I just grab the whole carton and . . .” She
makes slurping sounds.

Diane is usually in bed by eight thirty
P.M
., the structured life of a professional athlete. It is not lost on Diane how fortunate
she’s been to have a loving, strong, patient, capable life partner in Scott. At six
feet four, he’s never lived his life in Diane’s shadow literally or figuratively.
He’s steadfastly and graciously handled the role of husband, father, mother, and cheerleader.

“He’s always been my knight in shining armor,” Diane says. “How many men would handle
a wife seizing, three small children, and having to play the role of mom when I was
late picking up the kids? And try to live a normal life?”

Their married life, like most, has not been without challenges. Diane says even after
nearly thirty years together, they’re still ironing out the dynamics of their relationship,
plus the one they share with a brain injury.

“We’ve struggled in our marriage with my injury, just like with any other marriage.
And he’s been shortchanged—let’s be honest—because I’d be out running all the time,”
she shares, “and he honored that, and he let me be that, but I need to make sure I
make time for him.”

Several years ago they went through couples’ therapy with a close friend who works
in the field. She helped them both better understand how a traumatic brain injury
can promote anger when there is confusion. Diane says she always thought she was handling
family and married life well but realized through therapy what those around her have
had to manage.

“There were times when I was so frustrated and confused. ‘Scott,
why didn’t you tell me about that?’ Or ‘Why are you doing all this stuff, taking over
for the kids? I can do that!’ He would tell me something and I’d forget it. It became
very stressful.” Then she jokes, “I always said the best marriage would be two brain
injury patients because no one can remember shit. If you got into a fight, the next
day, you’d both be like, ‘Did I say that? Really? What did you say?’ Scott and I could
have a disagreement and the next day he’d be stewing and I’d just be oblivious, like,
‘What’s the problem?’ ”

Diane calls their marriage a loving work in progress. She’s determined to make more
time for Scott and to ask for his help in areas where she now realizes she needs it.
Scott says they’re still learning how to get what they need from each other after
twenty-nine years of marriage.

“There is no bigger fan than me because I understand the hard work she puts in. It’s
incredible. So, there is no bigger fan, but sometimes I don’t want to be her fan,
I want to be her husband.”

Diane acknowledges that she unintentionally caused hurt in their marriage.

“What he’s been through as a husband has been very difficult. I couldn’t ask for a
better man. He’s the best husband, the best father; there’s nobody who could fill
his shoes. I am so blessed. He’s really had to step up to the plate.” She pauses.
“Talk about endurance.”

How
has
Scott managed to support Diane so often and for so long? The question makes him emotional.

“I have this vision in my head of what a family and what an incredible marriage could
be,” he says, choking up, “and I just want to do my part. I go back to that Amelia
Earhart example, and I don’t want to be the guy on the History Channel that they talk
about, ‘Well, yeah, Amelia Earhart was supposed to do all these great things and fly,
but her husband didn’t want her to.’ So, there’s something special about Diane and
she’s in my life for a reason, and we’re pretty
incredible together. I don’t have all the answers, but somewhere in there is my vision.”

In an effort to spare others from experiencing the painful lessons she’s learned about
life with a brain injury, Diane has often counseled other people living with the same
challenge. In early 2010, Diane met thirty-eight-year-old Jake Quigley, a candidate
for the same brain surgery that ended her seizures. Jake was referred to Diane by
a colleague he works with at a nonprofit organization. Over the course of more than
six months, she guided him through the difficult decision of whether to undergo the
surgery. They talked through the uncertainty, what to expect from the surgery, what
to anticipate throughout the recovery process, and how the successful outcome impacted
her quality of life. Diane also shared with Jake that his twenty-seven years of seizures
had not
only damaged his brain but could also be damaging to his relationship with his wife.

“I told him how he needs to hold his wife’s hand sometimes,” Diane says, “and look
her in the eyes and thank her.”

Jake decided to undergo the surgery, and in April 2011, four months after his successful
operation, he sent Diane a handwritten letter. Along with the note, he sent her a
cowbell. The letter explained why:

When I was a kid, my winter months were spent playing hockey at the rink across from
my house in Watertown, Connecticut. My father and mother would always come to my games
to watch me play. My mother would bring this cowbell to each of my games and ring
it fiercely each time I took the ice.

The letter goes on to explain that when Jake was a senior in high school, he sustained
a devastating blow. His mother died in a raging fire that burned down the family house.
At his high school graduation, Jake’s family presented him with a special gift: the
cowbell. They’d found it in the burned rubble and had it cleaned and polished for
him. Jake treasured it throughout his life. He shared these words with Diane:

I have been fortunate to meet you this past year. In many ways you have influenced
me with your optimism, strength, and determination. You have been generous to guide
me through the journey of opting to have surgery and facing the fears and potential
complications. Your experience, honesty, and support allowed me to maintain a positive
outlook throughout the process. Please accept this gift as a symbol of my gratitude
for your friendship and positive influence. I wanted to give you something meaningful.
The cowbell can also be a motivator at future races!

Your friend, Jake

For all of Diane’s amazing accomplishments in the sports world, it’s her impact off
the running trails that matters most to her. Training and competing is second nature,
but Diane is determined to work as diligently at maintaining connections with family,
friends, and fellow victims of disabilities. Along with her Miles for a Mission fund,
Diane has also helped raise money for the epilepsy camp for children that inspired
her to keep running long distances. As a North Face athlete, she speaks to groups
across the country, as well as abroad, eight to ten times a year. Audience members
often share with Diane their personal experience with seizures, or their children’s
struggles with epilepsy, or fears about an approaching surgery similar to the one
Diane underwent. She’s grateful to listen and offer what they may be seeking.