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Health & Fitness

Running Changed Her Life

Within minutes, Kim was on a liter in the ER of Westfield Hospital. Dr. Lawton Delisser (another marathon runner) saw her blood pressure reading, a shocking 240/160, and knew something was very wrong.


Kim Sidor’s life changed dramatically on August 30, 2011. Kim just returned from a vacation, albeit a marathon of a vacation in Denver. Kim and her friend, Jenifer completed a Muddy Buddy event, ran the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon and hiked to St. Mary’s Glacier. Kim was in training for her first Marine Corps Marathon, held in Washington, D. C.

On that fateful day in August, Kim completed work early and went to purchase IronPigs' baseball tickets for that evening’s game. On her way home, she stopped for a workout at her gym.

“I stepped on the Cybex stair climber/elliptical machine; three minutes later, I had this overwhelming feeling that I was going to pass out. I stopped, got off the machine, the room seemed very far away, I found a chair and sat down. The feeling was getting worse, not better. I found my way into the locker room and grabbed my cell phone quickly, called my friend who was already on her way to meet me. She's a nurse and thought I was having a sugar crash. She took me to Wendy's and bought me a cheeseburger and an orange soda. Then the headache started coming, well not a normal headache, this feeling like somebody just hit me in the back of my head with a baseball bat. I threw up my lunch and realized I needed to get to the hospital.”

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Within minutes, Kim was on a liter in the ER of Westfield Hospital. Dr. Lawton Delisser (another marathon runner) saw her blood pressure reading, a shocking 240/160, and knew something was very wrong. Kim was sent for a Cat Scan and initially the results came back negative. “Dr. Delisser didn't dismiss my symptoms; he did a spinal tap on me. The first time, he found blood, so he stuck me again to make sure. Yes, blood was in the second stick so he looked right at me and said. ‘Kim I think you have a brain bleed and I think you'll need brain surgery’.”

Kim was transported to Lehigh Valley Hospital and directly admitted to the Neuro ICU. “That's when things started happening, really fast, and it's all still a blur. I had so many tests. I was stabilized overnight. The next day I was taken to see Dr. Daryn Shaff of the Neuro Interventional Radiology Department; he inserted 11 coils into my aneurysm.”  Kim was diagnosed with a stroke or a brain aneurism.

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“Two weeks later, with the help of many fine doctors and nurses, I was released to go home. A month later, I started walking outside.”  Kim transferred her Marine Corps registration to her friend from Denver who ran in Kim’s honor. “When Jenifer crossed the finish line, she draped the medal over my
head; it was quite an emotional moment. From that point, I was determined to
run the Marine Corps Marathon the following year, and that's exactly what I
did.”

Kim slowly started training, again. And has since completed numerous events. What did running do for Kim?  “It got me to remember that I can accomplish
anything, even after a setback, that I don't want to sit around and be the
victim for the rest of my life. It got me motivated once again.” 


Now Kim is running with a group of her coworkers at Westfield Hospital, and helping others to become healthy.

Kim has a donation page set up and has already donated $800 to the Brain Aneurysm Foundation. “And every single day that I go out training, I stop now, I look around at those things that I used to just run by before, take a deep breath, and breathe in the life around me.”

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