Winning against the odds

Byram woman repeatedly defies doctors’ predictions, By Margaret Witt Byram — Nine months ago, Dr. Barbara Ellicott, speech pathologist, avid runner, and a resident of Byram, was told, due to heart health problems, she would never run again. Unable to accept this prognosis, Ellicott has spent most of the last year working to prove all those doctors wrong. With her son at her side, Ellicott recently finished the Ohio Marathon. This Saturday, she will run in the second annual Fall Charity Hike at Byram’s Hudson Farms. The hike is three and a half miles long, and Hudson Farm will donate money equal to each hiker’s age to their choice of either Byram’s schools, fire or rescue squads. Ellicott became a runner later in life. After giving birth to her third child, she and a friend of hers, who had also just had a child, began walking on the track at Montclair State University, where she was working at the time. They would take turns — while one watched the kids playing on the side — the other walked. “We started to get competitive with each other. If she ran one mile, I had to run 1 1/2.” Her first race was two miles, then she joined a four mile race, and then she joined the Morris County Striders, a running club. In 1980, at 43, Ellicott ran the Newsday Long Island Marathon, which is 26.2 miles. She likes the longer marathons and considers herself an endurance runner. “In 2001, it took me six hours to finish the Boston marathon, but I finished,” she said. This isn’t the only time that Ellicott has defied her physicians and beaten the odds. A few years back, she was attacked and bitten by a pit bull. Having owned a pit bull at one time in her life, she knows them to be gentle, loving pets. She blames ferocity of the animal on it’s owners. “For any dog to attack, it has to be either trained to do so, or poorly treated.” This was the first time Ellicott was told she’d never run again. Without the exercise her body was used to, she quickly got out of shape. ”My children were worried about me. They were not enablers. I had gained a lot of weight, and they wanted me to take charge of my health.” Ellicott had gone from being 122 pounds to over 200. She turned to a vegan diet, and began walking, jogging and then running again. But, four years ago, Ellicott was diagnosed with Lyme’s disease. The disease was so far advanced that no antibiotic treatments would work. She still today has active Lyme. Having read Denise Lang’s “Coping with Lyme’s Disease,” Ellicot knew the disease can affect many different organs in the body. When she began feeling pain in her chest in 2004, she called 911. After spending three days in the hospital, Ellicott was told she suffered a heart attack. Her cholesterol was through the roof, and she was placed on medications to bring it down. Again, they cautioned her to stop running, saying the strain would be too much for her heart. Last year, Ellicott suffered from edema. It began with her feet swelling, and eventually the swelling traveled up her legs, and into her groin and belly area. She was rushed to the hospital. After many tests, she was diagnosed with a blood clot. She was given blood thinner, wound up with severe stomach pain and started hemorrhaging. Eventually, they diagnosed her with heart failure which caused an edema, the root of the swelling. She was given diuretics, and told she because of her fragile heart, she would no longer be able to run. Unwilling to accept this answer, Ellicott went to several other specialists, and finally found a physical therapist that told her it was not unreasonable to hope and train to run again. With a heart monitor that she had won at a previous marathon on hand, Ellicott began with simply walking again. She worked her way up to trotting, and then jogging. “One year ago this time, walking up my driveway was harder than now running a marathon.” Ellicott is looking forward to running and earning the Byram ambulance squad $65. “This is my opportunity to give back, especially when they’ve helped me out personally so much.” Ellicott now has her own speech therapy practice in Madison, has been a guest speaker for a variety of organizations, and will be for the American Vegan Society next Memorial Day — a service she provides for free. With all her health, diet and exercise experiences, she had begun to write a book as well, in order to share with others her story, “Just because you have bad genes, doesn’t mean you’re doomed.”