BOSCO'S BUDDIES in Runner's World!
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By Marc Bloom George Boscarino is working on his third life. A little more than a decade ago, he was a sedentary smoker with a poor diet who ran only "when someone chased me." He weighed 265 pounds. He couldn't walk up a set of stairs without gasping. His work as a car salesman was stressful. Given all these risk factors, Boscarino was surely living on borrowed time. Then things got worse. In 1993, Boscarino was diagnosed with hepatitis C, a life-threatening blood disease that doctors said he probably contracted in his youth. The ailment was unrelated to Boscarino's lifestyle, but it sparked him to take action. After watching the New York City Marathon the following year, he vowed to run it himself one day. "When I told that to my friend," says Boscarino, "he laughed at me." Today, 17 marathons later, Boscarino, 54, is lucky to be alive. But like the best runners, he's made his own luck. He's altered his life in stages: running a little, then alot, then entering marathons. He changed his diet, became a vegetarian, and treated his ailment homeopathically. He also found a trainer for both physical and emotional support, started a running club, became an officer, and put on races. Finally, as an offshoot, he started Bosco's Buddies to raise funds and awareness of hepatitis C with Team-in-Training-style group marathon efforts. The usual treatment for hepatitis C is interferon, a form of chemotherapy, which is not always effective and can cause debilitating reactions. Drugs didn't help Boscarino, and their nasty side effects caused extreme fatigue. After his last treatment early in 2002, Boscarino was so wiped out he couldn't run for a year and a half. He'd go to the clubhouse of the group he helped form, the New Jersey Road Runners, and rest on a mat while his friends did their Sunday runs. Undeterred, Boscarino picked himself up last June with help from his trainer, Susan Torchia, and resumed preparation for the New York City Marathon. He ran it with others from Bosco's Buddies, raising $6,000 for hepatitis C, which kills 10,000 Americans a year. "Running has saved my life," says Boscarino, who at 6-feet-tall, has dropped his weight to a more comfortable 210 pounds. Physically, mentally, he is better in every way. At one point recently, doctors in Pittsburgh, where Boscarino received treatment, reported that his condition had improved but they could not explain why. As the day grew late, Boscarino gave them the answer. "I have to leave," he said. "I'm doing a 10-miler tonight." For Boscarino, life is clearly more fun the third time around. |
A RUNNING LIFE
David Willey, Editor-in-Chief, RUNNER'S WORLD
It was one of those occurrences that's either coincidental or bizarrely meant to
be. I first read "Brand New You", contributing editor Marc Bloom's story about
five people who used running to turn their lives around, on a Friday afternoon
in late February. One of the people Bloom profiled is George Boscarino, a
54-year-old car salesman in New Jersey who was diagnosed with hepatitis C in
1993. Hepatitis C, a blood-borne virus that has infected four million Americans,
can lead to cirrhosis (scarring of the liver), liver failure, and liver cancer,
which kill 10,000 people every year in the United States. In 2001, Boscarino
began fighting the disease with interferon, an antiviral agent with miserable
side effects: exhaustion, depression, weight loss, constant shortness of breath.
After his last treatment, Boscarino couldn't run for a year and a half.
A year and a half. I winced at that part, because on that same late-February Friday, my father, Larry, began his own treatment for hepatitis C: one shot of interferon (self-administered, to be repeated every Friday for the next 48 weeks), plus five pills (two every morning, three every night) of ribivarin, another antiviral drug with nasty, energy-sapping side effects. My father, who is 57, contracted the disease after receiving a blood transfusion in 1970, before hep C had even been discovered. For three decades, the virus basically left him alone, and he lived a normal, active life. He built a thriving law practice, helped raise three kids and put them through college and grad school, and developed passions that involved, among other things, University of Michigan football, gardening, and fly-fishing. But the through-line to his life, the thing outside of family and work that has defined his days, is running. He's been a runner for 38 years, longer than I've known him. He's run countless road races, from three-milers to the 25-K River Bank Run in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and he'll run in the GUTS T-shirts he earned in those races until they simply fall apart. An all-around athlete in high school, he earned the nickname "Guts," and no one has ever known him to take a shortcut. He's run through everything from pulled muscles to wicked Michigan winters, often wearing socks on his hands instead of gloves.
A few years ago, my father's liver-enzyme counts (one measure of scarring) started to rise, reaching a worrisome peak this past fall. His only concession was to slow down. A little. Although he limits his racing to a four-mile New Year's Day Resolution Run, he continues to run every day for exactly 40 minutes. If he gets back after 36 minutes, he'll run up the street for two minutes before turning around. When he goes out West with his fly-fishing buddies, he rises before dawn so he can get his run in before spending 14 hours on the river. Even as his counts continued to climb, he resisted treatment, because who can run and travel and fish like that with poison running through his veins?
Then he changed his mind. Maybe it's because he's really into being a grandfather. Or maybe he realized he could give treatment a chance without giving in to it, that he could be smart and stubborn. Almost three weeks into the treatment -typically the toughest stretch-he was still doing his daily 40, along with three days of weight training. "It helps," he told me, "both physically and psychologically." He was tired by the end of the day, and often in bed by 8:00, but so far, so good. "I'd be naive to think I'll feel this way the whole time," he said. "But if I can stay active, I think I'll be fine."
So, Dad, check this out: This past November, George Boscarino - whose hepatitis is under control-finished the New York City Marathon, running with Bosco's Buddies, a group he started to raise funds and awareness of hepatitis C. He's got guts, huh?