Run, Patti, Run!

Mark V. Hansen

At a young and tender age, Patti Wilson was told by her doctor that she was an epileptic. Her father, Jim Wilson, is a morning jogger. One day she smiled through her braces¹ and said, "Daddy what I'd really love to do is running with you every day, but I'm afraid I'll have a seizure²." Her father told her, "If you do, I know how to handle it, so let's start running!"

That's just what they did every day. It was a wonderful experience for them to share and there were no seizures³ at all while she was running. After a few weeks, she told her father, "Daddy, what I'd really love to do is break the world's long-distance running record for women."

Her father checked the Guiness Book of World Records and found that the farthest any woman had run was 80 miles. As a freshman⁴ in high school, Patti announced, "I'm going to run from Orange County up to San Francisco." (A distance of 400 miles.) "As a sophomore⁵," she went on, "I'm going to run to Portland, Oregon." (Over 1500 miles.) "As a junior I'll run to St. Louis." (About 2000 miles) "As a senior I'll run to the White House." (More than 3000 miles away.) In view of her handicap, Patti was as ambitious as she was enthusiastic⁶, but she said she looked at the handicap of being an epileptic as simply "an inconvenience." She focused not on what she had lost, but on what she had left.

That year, she completed her run to San Francisco wearing a T-shirt that read, "I Love Epileptics." Her dad ran every mile at her side, and her mom, a nurse, followed in a motor home behind them in case anything went wrong. In her sophomore year, Patti's classmates got behind her. They built a giant poster that read, "Run, Patti, Run!" (This has since become her motto and the title of a book she has written.) On her second marathon, en route to Portland, she fractured a bone in her foot. A doctor told her she had to stop her run. He said, "I've got to put a cast on your ankle so that you don't sustain permanent damage."

"Doc, you don't understand," she said. "This isn't just a whim⁷ of mine, it's a magnificent obsession⁸! I'm not just doing it for me, I'm doing it to break the chains on the brains that limit so many others. Isn't there a way I can keep running?" He gave her one option. He could wrap it in adhesive⁹ instead of putting it in a cast. He warned her that it would be incredibly painful, and he told her, "It will blister¹⁰." She told the doctor to wrap it up. She finished the run to Portland, completing her last mile with the governor of Oregon. You may have seen the headlines: "Super Runner, Patti Wilson Ends Marathon For Epilepsy On Her 17th Birthday."

After four months of almost continuous running from West Coast to the East Coast, Patti arrived in Washington and shook the hand of the President of United States. She told him, "I wanted people to know that epileptics are normal human beings with normal lives."

I told this story at one of my seminars not long ago, and afterward¹¹ a big teary-eyed man came up to me, stuck out his big meaty hand and said, "Mark, my name is Jim Wilson. You were talking about my daughter, Patti." Because of her noble efforts, he told me, enough money had been raised to open up 19 multi-million-dollar epileptic centers around the country.

If Patti Wilson can do so much with so little, what can you do to outperform yourself in a state of total wellness?

帕蒂·威尔森年幼时就被医生诊断出患有癫痫。她的父亲吉姆·威尔森习惯每天晨跑。一天，穿着少年背带裤的帕蒂兴致勃勃地对父亲说：“爸，我真想每天跟你一起跑步，但我担心中途病情发作。”

父亲回答说：“万一你病情发作，我也知道怎么处理。就让我们从现在开始跑吧！”

就这样，父女俩每天一起跑起来。晨跑是她与父亲共同拥有的最快乐的时光；跑步期间，帕蒂的病一次也没发作。过了几个礼拜之后，她对父亲说：“爸，我真想打破女子长跑的世界纪录。”

她父亲替她查了查吉尼斯世界纪录，发现女子长跑的最高纪录是80英里。当时还在读高中一年级的帕蒂宣布：“今年我要从橘县跑到旧金山（两地相距400英里）。

“二年级时，要跑步到达俄勒冈州的波特兰（1500多英里）；三年级的目标是圣路易斯(约2000英里)；四年级要向白宫进军（3000多英里远）。”

即使身患残疾，帕蒂仍满怀理想与热情。她说癫痫只是给她带来不便的小毛病。她没有一味想着因病失去了什么，而是把全部的注意力放在仍然拥有的一切上。

中学一年级时，帕蒂身着写有“我爱癫痫病人”字样的T-恤衫，一路跑到了旧金山。父亲陪她跑完了全程，而做护士的母亲则开着旅行房车尾随在后，以防不测的发生。

二年级时，她身后的支持者换成了班上的同学。他们制作了一幅巨大的广告牌，上面写着“加油，帕蒂，加油！”（这后来成为她的座右铭，也成为她所撰写的一本书的标题）。

但在第二次前往波特兰的马拉松途中，她扭伤了一只脚的踝骨。医生告诫她必须中止跑步，他说：“你的脚踝必须上石膏，则会落下终身创伤。”

“医生，你不了解，跑步不是我一时兴起，而是我终生的理想。我跑步不单是为了自己，我这样做是为了打碎束缚许多残疾人脑子的枷锁。难道没有什么方法能让我继续跑完全程吗？”医生给了她一个选择，他可以用胶布把受伤处裹起来，不用上石膏；但他警告说，“这样会非常疼，而且还会起泡。”帕蒂二话不说让医生包扎起来。

帕蒂终于到达了波特兰，在俄勒冈州州长的陪同下，她跑完最后一英里。你可能在报纸上见过这样的标题：“超级长跑女将，身患癫痫的帕蒂·威尔森在17岁生日这天跑完马拉松。”

高三那年，经过4个月连续不断的长跑，帕蒂从西海岸跑到东海岸，到达了华盛顿，并有幸与美国总统握手。她告诉总统：“我想告诉人们，癫痫患者也是正常人，也能过正常的生活。”

不久以前，我曾在我的一次研讨会上讲起这个故事，会后一位块头高大的男士走到我跟前，他双眼含泪，向我伸出大手说：“马克，我叫吉姆·威尔森，你刚才提到的就是我的女儿帕蒂。”他告诉我，由于帕蒂的非凡努力，他们已筹措了足够的资金，预备在全国建立19所癫痫病治疗中心。

如果帕蒂能尽她仅有的微薄之力取得如此巨大的成就，那么身心健全的我们难道不应该超越自我，有更大的作为吗？