Time to talk about somebody else for a change

Every now and then, I receive a random email from someone I don’t know who has come across my blog online. David Deak is one such person, and with his permission, I want to share a little bit of his story here. Besides it being an incredibly inspiring one, from time to time I quite frankly get a little tired of talking about myself.

David is a Toronto-born Canadian living in Denmark. He entered into the world of triathlon the same year that I did, 2006, but tackled the Ironman distance sooner than me by taking a crack at IM Austria in 2008. Having apparently enjoyed it, he signed up for the IM Austria 2009 the very next morning.

As David began his preparation for his second Ironman, he began to dabble in the world of vegan eating. Like me, he was largely motivated by a quest for optimal health and fitness, with socio-moral-philosophical reasons weighing in a close second. He read The Thrive Diet (an excellent guide to vegan eating and training by professional triathlete Brendan Brazier) and then T. Colin Campbell's The China Study. Like me, David began to notice his energy levels increase and his fatigue cycle decrease between training sessions with a plant-based diet.

A few short weeks after his first Ironman, David’s family received some unfortunate news. His father, who had suffered from type-II diabetes and high blood pressure for a number of years, was diagnosed with end-stage renal disease (considered terminal). David’s dad was told he would have to choose between a life on dialysis or possible kidney donation. David and his brother, Andrew - also a vegan - put themselves forward as possible kidney donors. They spent the fall and winter of last year undergoing the necessary medical tests to determine who would be the most compatible and lowest risk donor. The results concluded that David was the only possible option. In the meantime, David’s father’s disease had accelerated much quicker than expected and by January of this year, he was put on dialysis.

David accepted the role of organ donor to his father without question, although certainly not without mental turmoil. Both the risks associated with kidney donation (not least of all, decreased longevity) and the unknowns of being able to pursue his new-found passion for triathlon with one kidney weighed heavily on his mind. The medical team had no idea if it was even possible to train for an event like Ironman with one man in two down. There was also the burden of further medical vetting of his father and the seemingly constant postponements of the surgery date as the medical team tried to ensure that his Dad was in a condition to handle the transplant.

David continued with his preparation for IM Austria, albeit sporadically, while being fully prepared to cancel his participation if it clashed with the surgery date. It was around this point that David came across my blog. I think he was using a combo of keywords relating to vegan and Ironman on google, and there I was. David got in touch and shared his story with me, and we swapped emails for a few weeks on being Canadian in Europe, being vegan in the sports world, and being under pressure in expected ways through life’s varying twists and turns.

Shortly after I first heard from David, the date for surgery was finally set – and it happened to be ten days after IM Austria. A little more mental turmoil ensued, and David decided to go ahead with the race while preparing for the donation; who knows if it would be his last opportunity? Through all of this, he continued with his vegan diet and got his Dad on the bandwagon in the hopes that a plant-based diet might abate his rapidly deteriorating condition. The preparations to donate proved to be intense and his training suffered to the point of being non-existent (and he didn’t mention this at the time, but I later found out that somewhere in the middle of all this, he also changed jobs and moved house).

July rolled around, and David drove down to Austria to toe the line at the edge of beautiful Lake Worther in Klagenfurt on July 5h. He swam 3.8km in 1:09, biked 180km in 5:11 and ran 42.2km in 3:37 to finish in a remarkable overall time of 10.04.

Only the pros were ahead of him.

The next day, he got in the car and drove back to Holland, where his dad lives and where the kidney transplant was to take place. He rested a few days as other family members arrived in Holland to help, before driving himself and his Dad to the hospital. The surgery went well, and within two days he was out of hospital. A few days afterwards I received an email from David:

“…doing an Ironman is kind of cool and pretty hardcore, but donating a kidney - that is way more crazy and way more hardcore! It’s scarier and definitely plays around with the mind a little…but I am really glad I did it. It has given my Dad a second chance at things. The doctors reported that he has a "turbo kidney": they had to scale back his medication abruptly because the kidney was doing such a good job and brought all the blood markers (creatinine, phophorous, etc.) down faster than record. That news made us all smile – they suspect that it’s due to diet and my ironmanning.”

That made me smile, too.

It is now six weeks since the operation. David’s recovery is similarly going extremely well, and he’s back on the bike and running on a regular basis already, with just the one kidney. The scar is still preventing him from swimming, but it’s close to being fully healed. Obviously not one to rest on his laurels, he’s already signed up for IM Lanzarote next year, and plans to be the first vegan with one kidney to complete an Ironman.

He’s got me beat.