Bruce has been thru quite a bit since the surgery. Aside from his obvious trauma to his leg, he's dealt with frustrating insurance, out of control medical bills, pain management, phantom pains, physical therapy, learning how to walk with a prosthetic.... the list goes on.
One of his goals after the surgery was to walk the Gasparilla 5K in February. He might have been high on morphine when he decided this, but he did it in a very public way, so being the great friends that we are, we rallied around him and agreed to come to support him, and in a way, forced him to do it.
A little history about Gasparilla. It's an annual event that Tampa celebrates every year to honor José Gaspar, a Spanish nobleman who turned to piracy and sailed from a secret island south of Tampa where he would attack and plunder ships in the Gulf of Mexico. The city holds a huge parade every January (an excuse to drink) and in February holds a series of races and marathons and Bruce wanted to walk the 5K.
I'm back to work from my heart surgery, but have been on the road this month helping with union meetings at our flight attendant bases dealing with an early out package the airline is offering, but in between nine days on the road, I had plans to hop down to Tampa to walk with Bruce, albeit for less than 24 hours.
I was in DC the day before and met up with Leslie and Liz, two high school friends living in the area. We went out for tapas on Thursday night. Leslie would be flying down on Friday to walk with Bruce as well. Actually several "Terriers" were flying in to support Bruce (the terrier is our high school mascot).
Friday in our nation's capital proved to be a challenging weather day, but I finally made it to Tampa around 1:30am that night. After a few hours of sleep my friend Jonathan came to get me and we were off to join the Bruce Crew.
We all gathered near the starting point of the race. It was great to see some local friends and some other friends who came in from out of town to support Bruce.
The race started at 10am and we have a goal of getting Bruce across the finish line in around 70 minutes.
Some Star Wars storm troopers even showed up to lend their support.
On mile one, we ran into our first supporter, our friend Pam, a fellow terrier. Our friend Kristi was stuck in traffic, but we saw her as we finished the race.
Here I am walking with Jonathan and Stacy Shortly after we took the picture, the skies opened up and we got drenched. Soaked to the bone. But we had no choice but to continue walking, including big bad Bruce. And continue he did!
We kept each other's spirits up, even in the downpour. It was fun catching up with everyone and finding out what was new in each other's lives. We go long periods without seeing each other for the most part, but we always pick up where we left off. A strange high school bond that I don't think many others have.
We passed "The End Is In Sight" banner and a middle aged cheerleader (although we too are middle aged) and we knew we were close. And Bruce kept on plugging along. We had Bruce's wheelchair just in case, but it actually came in handy because his daughter was playing in the puddles and fell and skinned her knee, so her mom pushed her along in the chair.
We approached the finish line right around the 70 minute mark, which was Bruce's goal. He was in a lot of pain, but he kept on walking and we all cheered him to victory. It was an emotional moment, but also a special one, given all that he went thru.
We all got 5K medals for completing the race. We were supposed to get a free beer too, but they conveniently keep that beer tent far away from the finish line, so we bailed on the beer to go get cleaned up and dried off before meeting for our victory lunch.
We all rendezvoused at a trendy South Tampa eatery for lunch and celebratory drinks and we toasted our pal and his accomplishment that day.
I am so proud of my buddy and we all agreed that this is now an "annual" event that we can look forward to participating in for years to come!
