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Wednesday, Sep. 09, 2009

The heart of a champion

It took a little time, but I found another winner in Monday’s 5K Labor Day Road Race.

Her name is Lawanna Prescott, and I had to search through the tiny type to find her. She finished 1,002nd out of 1,182 runners in the 3.1-mile race.

She was a full 24 minutes behind women’s division winner Grace Tinkey, who is a ninth-grader at First Presbyterian Day School and one of the city’s most accomplished young runners.

By the time Lawanna made it to the finish line at Central City Park, Grace could have done her homework, met her friends for ice cream and run home to change shoelaces.

Still, I’m happy to proclaim Lawanna among the winners. She didn’t set any land speed records. Admittedly more of a tortoise than a hare, she broke the 42-minute mark by a scant three seconds.

Inside her, though, beats the heart of a champion.

“At the finish line, everybody was asking me for my time,” she said. “I told them I didn’t know. All I knew was I started and finished the race ... and I didn’t swell.”

It’s not unusual for runners to shed a few pounds while laboring legs on the first Monday in September.

The reverse is true with Lawanna. She has been known to gain 5-10 pounds every time she puts on her running shoes. In her first-ever Labor Day race last year, she crossed the finish line with extra baggage.

“I gained almost 20 pounds,” she said. “My kidneys had quit working. They were trying to hold on and retain everything. My hands were so swollen I couldn’t move my fingers.”

Lawanna is 38 years old and has been battling systemic lupus nearly two-thirds of her life. It’s an auto-immune disorder that has played havoc with almost every organ in her body. There is no cure.

Diagnosed at age 13, her doctors told her parents, Bert and Carol Whitehead, she probably would not live to become a young woman.

She has had almost 100 surgeries, including nearly 20 times on her heart. She is on her third pacemaker. She is awaiting a kidney transplant and a possible eye (cornea) transplant. She has had surgery to reconstruct her stomach and esophagus.

Every day, she has to swallow 52 pills.

With a thick medical chart like that, Lawanna had about 637 reasons to stay in bed Monday morning.

She didn’t use a one of them.

Instead, she was pounding the pavement through midtown by the dawn’s early light. With her husband, Tracy, at her side, she found enough torque to climb the brutal hill at St. Paul.

“Sometimes it hurts,” she said. “But we have to do a lot of things in life that hurt.”

Lawanna has participated in about 10 road races over the past three years, including a half-marathon (13.1 miles) for St. Jude Research Hospital in Memphis.

She runs in memory of her mama, who died three years ago. They were as close as a mother and daughter could be.

Lawanna isn’t just a patient with a portacath and a long list of ailments. She is a medical professional who is coordinator of the vascular and cardiac lab at The Jones Center in Macon.

She tries to encourage her patients to exercise and be active. Strengthen their bodies, heal their wounds and increase their self-esteem.

My guess is she has just inspired plenty of folks.

Now that’s a champion.

Reach Gris at 744-4275 or gris@macon.com