A Run for Amanda’s House: An Aloha 5K Experience
This morning, I completed the Glens Falls Hospital Aloha 5K, a race to support Amanda’s House, a small place that provides accommodations for Glens Falls Hospital patients and their families who have traveled a distance for healthcare. It was officially opened by the hospital in 2002 after ten months of renovations from volunteers. It was created as a memorial for Amanda Rose Cafaro, a baby diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia at 4-months old. She was admitted to Maine Medical Center and eventually transferred to the Children’s Hospital in Boston where, after an unsuccessful experimental bone marrow transplant, she passed away.
The house operated for more than a decade and gave a home to hundreds of people each year. The incorporated Amanda’s House could not escape the issues of the economic times and was forced to cease operations in 2013. The Board of Directors worked with Glens Falls Hospital in hopes that it could continue the house’s legacy. In 2014, the hospital, working with local business leaders, was able to raise the community support it needed. In late January 2015, Glens Falls Hospital re-opened Amanda’s House. Since then, the Glens Falls Hospital has organized a fundraiser race, known as Aloha 5K, to continue the needed support for the operation, helping families with temporary housing needs during a crisis.
I had been anticipating this race for months, as I had signed up and revealed my story for how the Glens Falls Hospital saved my life back in September. I voluntarily walked into the emergency department with the support of my now-husband and my therapist for a mental health breakdown. I knew something was wrong with me, as I had three suicide attempts from the preceding six months, with a near-constant stream of suicide ideation thoughts. I thought asking for help was a sign of weakness. I tried to fix all my problems the best I could. But we don’t always have the answers, especially when we don’t know what to ask for. And I have certainly learned a lot.
The nine-day hospital visit allowed me to begin a crash course in psychology. The benefits of different styles of relationship boundaries, from porous to rigid, is essential for keeping my sense of self, identity, and anxiety in balance. Learning meditation and appreciating stillness and silence taught me how to calm my stress response, distancing myself from reactions and emotions. Regaining the ability to write allowed my nearly constant stream of anxious and depressive thoughts to get out of my brain and onto paper, something that is very therapeutic and helpful when making decisions.
It was not all sunshine and positivity in the hospital, though. The mental health crisis center was a scary experience, at times. Being cooped up in a small room, with only a bed and barely any privacy was not exactly fun. But the intense boredom and lack of freedom allowed my mind to learn how to heal. And learn how to become used to sobriety and not using substances to numb the anxious and depressive thoughts that had been a crutch in my 20's and accelerated in my 30's.
I was given anti-anxiety medication, fluoxetine, for the first time. Something that terrified me for years, mostly from the reported bad experiences from folks that tried them. But for myself, it was a breath of fresh air. Mixed with sobriety, meditation, and the crash course in psychology, I am finally on the journey to heal my past trauma and unhealthy coping skills. Once I got the help I needed, learned how to work through my heightened anxiety and debilitating, at times, depression, trained my mind to appreciate meditation, I can now say that my life has value, as it does for all of us.
On the morning of the race, as predicted a couple days earlier, the sky was grey, with the rain was drizzling. Since I lived less than a half mile from the start of the race, I decided to ride my bike. My legs had been tested again and again since leaving the hospital. In November, I completed 33 miles of running (as well as grow a beard) to support Movember, a non-profit organization that spreads awareness on men’s mental health issues and pancreatic cancer treatments. I wrote an essay detailing the personal journey and active recovery after the hospital.
I conquered 33 miles in January while listening to Jack and Euguene’s World Tour, a virtual race series on the ZRX app. The app has been around since 2012; kickstarted as a fun way to instill motivation for running in a zombie apocalypse. It has morphed into a world-renowned fitness app that encompasses not only zombies, but Marvel superheroes and other stories to help motivate anyone into a fitness lifestyle. They incorporate virtual races twice a year with leaderboards to encapsulate a sense of community. Jack and Eugene’s World Tour came out in 2021 in three parts, first one in their series of virtual races.
In March, I ran with Dan Robert’s friends as he finished up the final miles of his 44-mile journey over 48 hours for charity. The charity that he was supporting was the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, an incredible organization that has a mission to save lives of people that feel that they no longer deserve to live. In May, I completed all four trail races in Cole’s Woods located in Glens Falls, New York, along with many Tuesdays prior with the Glens Falls Run Club.
Moving back to the morning of the Aloha 5K, I arrived at the starting line as everyone was silent, listening to a recording of Whitney Houston’s rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner. The crowd for the race was larger than expected, especially given the dreary weather. After securing a place for my bike, I gravitated toward the therapy dogs, leashed by their owners and lying on the wet ground. When I was in the hospital, I missed the opportunity to interact with them due to an asymptomatic diagnosis of COVID. It was incredibly cathartic to finally pet them, feeling a sense of calm as I connected with the dog’s playful energies.
I met up with some friends, where we chatted about our nerves before the race, as well as take a group photo to preserve the memories for our group, Glens Falls Run Club. Shortly afterward, the race began with the horn, as hundreds of runners and walkers marched over the starting line. If you are unfamiliar with the area, we started at a local park’s pavilion, Haviland’s Cove, then rounded the road toward the Feeder Canal Trail. A mile or so down the trail, we turned right at the entrance to the Pruyn’s Island Trail, where we would run its length and then circle back to the finish at Haviland’s Cove pavilion.
The Pruyn’s Island Trail project was finished very recently by Glens Falls, creating a gorgeous extension to the Feeder Canal Trail with breathtaking views of the Hudson River. I had been excitedly telling everyone about its progress for months, and I was so happy to finally run a race on its finished surface. While the rain made the surfaces muddy and slippery, we all made it through with no reported injuries.
As I neared the finish line and looked at the time clock start 27 minutes, I focused on my recovery journey and my future plans to help others. I preserved through my own fears and gathered enough signatures to be on the ballot for local councilperson, as I continue to learn about city government and the ways to help provide hope and resilience in this time of uncertainty.
Prior to my finish, two of my friends Andrew and Alex won first place for male and female, respectively, and Rashna, Andrew’s wife, finished third. Even more amazing, our team had the most participants, securing an engraved spot on the inaugural Pineapple trophy. I learned that there were close to 450 participants at the race, a new record according to Tom Lyons, the race organizer. While the weather was dreary, the event was a huge success, uplifting the spirits of the whole community.
