Girard woman overcomes medical hurdles for race

October 22, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

On November 2, 2011, Erin Fink gave birth to her second child, a son named Davis at University Hospital of Geauga in Chardon.

Approximately 36 hours later, she was having a CT scan and barely 96 hours after giving birth was having a tumor at the base of her brain removed.

Talk about resiliency.

Barely 346 days to the day of her surgery, Fink was running in Sunday’s Peace Race.

“I was experiencing horrible headaches throughout my pregnancy and after giving birth to Davis I began to see double,” she said. “A CT scan then revealed the brain tumor so I was life-flighted to University Hospital in Downtown Cleveland where they prepped me for surgery.

“I had emergency surgery to drain fluid from my brain and two days later doctors performed a craniotomy, ripping open the muscles in my neck to get to the tumor. I had what they call a pilocytic astrocytoma and it was totally removed by Dr. Andrew Sloan. When I returned to Dr. Sloan after six months of recovery, they performed pathology on that area and it came back benign. He then told me it was nice knowing you, now go out and have a great life.”

The toughest part of the entire ordeal was that Fink and husband Kevin, who also have a daughter, Lila, had to send Davis and their daughter home to Girard with her cousin, Sarah Gibson, in order for her to recuperate.

The 1997 Girard High School graduate, who earned seven letters in track and field and soccer for the Indians during a stellar scholastic career, said the outpouring of support from friends and family members, as well as those from the Maplewood schools where her mother, Bonnie Hood taught, was so very thoughtful and most appreciated.

“I cannot begin to tell you how appreciative we all were for all of the help and assistance that we received,” she said. “Friends and family, pretty much the entire community of Girard, those that my mother worked with and the First United Methodist Church in Girard brought food and watched my daughter and son while my mom stayed with me. They were all so gracious and caring.”

During her recovery process, husband Kevin was sitting on the bed with her and said, “We’re running a marathon in one year.”

“I said OK, whatever, and about a month later he said I really did sign us up so you better start training,” Fink said. “I started doing those training runs and I just wanted to kill him, but I do love running so I stuck with it. Today, I am glad that I did.”

Fink finished 572nd and ran the course in 57:13.6.

To those that know her and the struggle that she has gone through in order to get back to this competitive point, she was Sunday’s No. 1 finisher.