Megan Norris - Running Pink: Deborah De Williams Inspiring Story

Running Pink

One woman, one dog and an 18,000-kilometre run for a cause

Deborah De Williams inspiring story

Megan Norris

Running for a Cure

Go easy, cautioned the young casualty doctor, shaking his head in disbelief at the pink patient hobbling through the crowded hospitals Accident and Emergency Department towards the front entrance.

His triage nurse craned her neck from behind the central casualty desk, her eyes following the woman now limping out of the doors and across the car park.

Is she actually jogging ? asked the nurse, peering after the woman who had arrived at her desk very early that morning and casting an anxious eye around the rows of patients already waiting in line to see one of the duty doctors.

Dr John Johnson nodded. Yep, she certainly is, he said, resigned.

For the last few hours a subdued and dejected Deborah De Williams had lain behind the curtain of a cubicle in the casualty area of Darwin Hospital, watching the clock and waiting. Her face had looked anxious as young Dr John Johnson pinned her X-rays on the light board beside the hospital bed where she had been instructed to rest her badly injured feet.

These X-rays dont tell us too much, Dr Johnson had said, studying the films. I think we need to do bone scans so we know what were dealing with here.

Deborah shifted uneasily on the bed, groaning. Shed seen enough of Darwin Hospital already, she thought, staring miserably from her feet, to the X-rays, to the clock.

It was already two p.m. and from the moment shed limped into casualty at around eight that morning, flinching with every step she took, shed made sure everyone understood she was a woman in a hurry.

Wednesday 3 June 2009 was, for Deborah, Day 222 of a year-long adventure in which she was attempting a world-record-breaking run around Australia. The seasoned ultra-marathon runner wasnt just trying to set a new world record for the longest continuous run by a female by running around this vast continent running the entire 365 days without a single day off she was on another equally important mission.

Im running for a cure, shed explained to the triage nurse, gesturing towards her bright pink t-shirt, shorts and cap bearing the logo of Running Pink, the breast cancer charity shed founded more than two years earlier after mounting her own battle against the disease. Now in remission, Deborah was running around Australia to raise funds for breast cancer research.

Yet, in the past seven months since the mammoth challenge began on 25 October 2008, not even Deborah could have envisaged the rousing welcome that lay waiting for her along the road.

Everywhere she went, from crowded city centre shopping malls, to suburban parks, to remote outback cattle stations and isolated indigenous communities, shed been mobbed by crowds of pink. Breast cancer survivors and battlers supported by their husbands, children, parents and friends had turned out in their fluffy pink droves, their imaginations sparked by this inspirational crazy pink lady running around the country with her dog. Deborah wasnt just running for herself, she realised, she was running for anyone whose life had been touched by breast cancer.

The Australian public had responded to her cause with such generosity that money was pouring into Deborahs charity from the collections she made at the countless community rallies and awareness meetings shed addressed along the way. All the money Deborahs adventure raised would, she promised her supporters, go towards vital medical research that she hoped might one day eradicate a disease known to strike more than 1.3 million women around the world every year. In Australia, every day more than 30 women discover they have breast cancer about 11,500 people every year.

It was a cause close to Deborahs heart. When breast cancer first sneaked up on her in March 2006, shed been utterly devastated. But in her typical stubborn way, shed simply refused to let the disease slow her down. Long before doctors confirmed she was in remission, Deborah had already beaten the cancer in her head, vowing to herself that she would tackle the disease the only way she knew how by outrunning the bloody thing!

Now, over 10,000 kilometres into a run Deborah estimated would exceed 18,000 kilometres, she had shuffled past the halfway mark of Darwin with a new appreciation that she wasnt only on the run of her life, Deborah De Williams was running for life. Or at least she had been, until an unfortunate mishap almost four weeks ago that now threatened to put the brakes on her world-breaking attempt.

I cant just sit here, shed told her husband Glyn, checking the hospital clock and limping back to the triage desk to ask the nurse again: How long now until these bone scans?

In truth, Deborah appreciated that this busy hospital had pulled out all the stops to help her. When news of the pink philanthropist and her astonishing charity run spread through the emergency waiting area, Dr Johnson had rushed her through to a private room in the busy casualty department where hed ordered urgent X-rays. Then he arranged for the impatient patient to be immediately assessed by the hospitals physiotherapist.

Shes got a huge following, a young nurse whispered to the physio who had been paged by casualty. The nurses curiosity was piqued by this gutsy 39-year-old artist-turned-entrepreneur. Only a few days earlier, shed turned on the ABC radio news to hear Deborah De Williams interview as she ran into Darwin on two badly injured feet shed hurt almost a month earlier in an accidental fall.

Shes running with her dog, continued the nurse. Wherever she goes, people turn out to cheer her on. Shes really amazing. Deborahs run had certainly fuelled the imagination of a nation, her name regularly popping up in newspapers along the way, her voice now familiar to ABC listeners in each of the states shed already travelled through.

Yet now it was Deborahs imagination that ran riot as she lay in casualty, checking the clock again, and wondering how long it would take to organise those bone scans.

To keep the record alive, I have to run a minimum of 20 kilometres every single day non-stop, Deborah explained to the physio who studied the X-rays that offered no explanation for the excruciating pain in both feet. That means no days off including today!

The physio didnt reply, focussing his attention instead on Deborahs locked and painful thigh muscles, which were showing signs of deep bruising.

This bruising and pain is a direct result of your awkward gait, he said, after observing her limp up and down casualty. Deborahs body was definitely compensating for the injuries in her feet. Her hip and back were now hurting too as she adopted a clumsy shuffle favouring her right foot and protecting the more injured left one.

She winced as the physio pressed on the more badly swollen left foot, asking her to elaborate on the fall that had knocked her off her feet 23 days earlier as shed headed through the Northern Territory towards her halfway goal.

It was unbelievably dumb ... began Deborah.

***

Monday 11 May 2009 was the start of Week 29 in an adventure that had begun in Deborahs hometown of Hobart. The morning had begun typically early for Deborah as she climbed out of bed and peered from the caravan window over the Stuart Highway across the sunburned outback where there wasnt a person or truck in sight.

While Glyn, Deborahs artist husband, was still sleeping when she woke at five a.m., Maggie, her adorable pure-bred Border collie, was already wide awake.