Here’s an article about a running buddy of mine, Brian Welch.  A couple of years ago he was sidelined from running by the discovery of over a dozen blood clots on one of his legs and one clot in a lung.

He was lucky to be alive.  He’s an amazing athlete and a top notch gentleman.  I don’t know how many times Brian and I trained together always competing against each other and, always getting beat by him.  I joked a lot that how could I get beat in running by this old man.  Well, there is a simple answer for that.  Brian has the drive and discipline like no other athlete I have known.  And, he is simply a better runner than me.

He does have a lot to be thankful for and for those that know Brian, we too have a lot to be thankful to have a good friend like Brian still with us.

Brian, God bless.

dh

11/25/2009

Brian Welch

Around Fleet Feet Savannah we hear a lot of stories of local runners that participate in this race or that race and what happened. We have lots of conversations about training, shoes, and training. We hear how great an event went or what happened when the wheels came off… Makes for an interesting work place, and makes you appreciate what a great fitness town we live in.

You may know Brian Welch or recognize him. He’s a swell guy and has been hanging out around the local Savannah Running Scene for years now. He’s the kind of athlete whose intensity and enthusiasm for exercise is unsurpassed even at 50.That’s a joke he’s 47 or 48 but not 50. When you meet him you might say, “Wow, that guy is in shape.” Yes, he is but he has a unique story that  unfortunately we often hear about nationally, not locally: an incredibly fit individual that experiences something bad. This is the story of a guy who was at the top of his game and had it all taken away and fortunately for him, his family, and us, has battled back.

Brian qualified for the Boston Marathon in December 2007 and was ready to go to Boston in April 2008. Simply put, qualifying for Boston at any age is not easy. In February Brian started to experience severe pain in his left leg.

He recalls one day, “I was completely out of breath and having chest pains, and my left leg was killing me. I totally ignored the chest pain and wrote it off to reflux.” Runners sometimes write ailments off no matter how severe convincing themselves that it’s the result of their training and try to “run through” the pain. Actually Brian was confusing his training with something bigger at play- something that had absolutely nothing to do with the training he was doing.

“On Sunday as I was sitting in church on the back pew, I had an ice bag on the knee and a TENS Unit on the calf, hoping to deep massage it back to health.” Brian felt like he was having a heart attack.”

For days Brian tried to work things out on his own. “I went to get the calf massaged, and thankfully, the massage therapist wouldn’t touch it since it was so tight.”

At this point, his wife was telling him that everything that he was experiencing was coming up as blood clots on the Internet. Still he waited hoping his leg would work it out and he would be back to normal.

On Wednesday he finally went to see his doctor. Dr. Robert Brown, an internist at Chatham Medical. “Dr. Brown was alarmed because he knew what kind of shape that I was in, but he also knew that I worked around blood in the hospitals, and he wanted me to be tested for HIV.” Brian was also referred to a Vascular Surgeon, Dr. Tony Sussman. Brian was to have an ultrasound on his leg.

While doing the ultrasound, the technician got real quiet, and broke the silence with the dreaded words, “Mr. Welch, you have clots in your leg.”

“God, how did this happen to me? Dr. Sussman informed me that I’m lucky to be alive, that you’re the kind of guy we read about in the obituaries and say, WHAT HAPPENED? The Doctor tells me not to stand up or squat (in fear of dislodging the clots), that they will take me by wheelchair immediately to Memorial Medical Center to have a CT scan on my pelvis and abdomen to see if I have CANCER, because CANCER can cause clots.”

So, we have gone to having an HIV test to a CT scan for cancer.

“To say that I lost it when he left the room is an understatement. Selfishly, all I could think of was the hard work that I had put in to run Boston, runs at midnight down HWY 80 in Thunderbolt to 5 am runs on Wilmington Island. I waited nervously for the CT scans to happen that night.

As they wheeled me back to his room, the phone rang. It was Dr. Brown. He said, “We have good news and bad news.”

Good news was there was no cancer; bad news was that Brian had clots that had broken off and gone into his right lung (called a Pulmonary Emboli, or a PE for short). Clots that travel to the lungs are fatal in 1 out of 3 patients (National Alliance For Thrombosis and Thrombophilia). They immediately placed him on blood thinners and Brian was later found HIV negative.

When Brian got home he did an Internet search on “Blood Clots in Runners”. He came across a doctor at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Richard Cheng, who was doing a study on people who are recently diagnosed with clots (14 day window), injecting a drug directly into the clot, and dissolving them. After emailing Dr. Cheng Saturday morning, Dr. Cheng incredibly him called back within 2 hours, explained the protocol, and said Brian would be a candidate. He flew to Bethesda, Maryland the next day. He spent 5 days in the hospital there, undergoing treatments that lasted hours each day. He had clots on top of clots. After several months of follow-up after being released he was thankfully clot free!

Brian tested positive for something called Factor V Leiden deficiency, which is an inherited genetic condition that predisposes him to form clots. Why, at the age of 47, did this crop up? No one can answer that question.

Is Brian Welch thankful to be alive? We can answer that one and it’s a resounding “YES”.

Is he thankful to take part in the 2009 Enmark Savannah River Bridge Run?

“So now, I want toe it up on the line for the 2009 Enmark Savannah Bridge Run! It has been almost 2 long years since I have entered a race. Nothing beats the camaraderie of runners at a race, and Robert Espinoza does such a fantastic job of putting this and other running events on in Savannah. I want other people to know that they too can overcome serious illness and obstacles to achieve their goals. None of us are promised tomorrow… Never let anyone tell you can’t do something. You’ll never know until you try. Will I ever get back to where I was before the clots? Don’t know, but I’m sure gonna try.”

Thank you Brian.