The Patriot Post® · Diana Nyad's 'Passion'

The very idea of swimming from Cuba to Key West sounds pretty nuts to me. Further, I’d be quick to shy away from anybody at a cocktail party who told me they once swam around New York’s Manhattan island in just seven hours and 52 minutes.

But when I heard Diana Nyad was once expelled from Atlanta’s Emory University for parachuting out of a fourth-story dorm window, my interest in the 61-year-old long-distance swimmer was instantly piqued. So I was one of thousands who winced when she was pulled from the Florida Straits earlier this week after swimming 58 miles but with 53 more left to go.

All in all, Diana was in the water for about 30 hours after leaving Cuba’s Marina Hemingway just about sundown on Sunday night but by Tuesday morning she was through; an unprecedented asthma attack, a pinched nerve in her “good” shoulder and an unforgiving sea snapping her from a dream that dated back to 1978 when she tried the feat once before.

This time she tried it without a shark cage, which in itself could have gotten prime lodging in the loony bin, but the reason I was pulling for her is because in just 11 days she’ll be as old as I am. I adore people with pluck and sass, particularly those who believe age only matters if you are a tree, and Diana Nyad is evermore a standard to behold.

Some say she failed “in a stupid publicity stunt” but, no, that’s hardly the case. “I was the best person I could be … that’s the message,” she told CNN. “Whatever you’re doing, do your job well.” At another point she added, “You have to live your life with passion, you show your will, you feel proud of yourself when you go to bed at night.”

So she dived right in. The swim started great. When she swims, she sings to herself, songs from the Beatles, Neil Young and Janis Joplin soothing her soul as she goes about three miles an hour in the water. But suddenly she felt a slight ping in her shoulder and then the pain intensified.

She asked her handlers for a Tylenol sometime early Monday morning – the ocean was still black as night – and was given a pill that looked unfamiliar. That’s when the first case of asthma she’s ever had soon began to wreck her dreams. Her body “limping” and “slapping around,” a doctor jumped in the water with an inhaler; it was little help.

Later in the day, her mouth and lips swollen from the salt water, another friend handed her some shredded baked chicken and things seemed to brighten. Diane still thought she could finish.

“It would not be pretty, not the usual beautiful freestyle I have and be the swimmer I am,” she told the Miami reporters, “but I’ll get there … it is more inspiring to watch someone struggle and not give up than have an easy time of it,” she reasoned.

But the winds kicked up, unusual for the glassy seas and calm air known about this time every the year as “the doldrums,” and with waves of now 4-to-5 feet buffeting the boats that accompanied her on the adventure, the going only got worse.

She was blown off course, and into some jellyfish, of all things, and finally she realized another 50 miles was too much to ask. She knew she could do it, after having once swam 102 miles from Bimini to Florida, but this was different.

“I was shaking and freezing,” she said. “And I thought, there’s no mind over matter anymore. I was so depleted from the asthma. It’s hard because I felt like I had it in me but we needed a little more luck.”

So will this bright ambassador for every Senior Citizen I know ever try the Florida Straits swim again? “This was my fairytale year, when it all came together,” Nyad told reporters. “I can’t swear, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to my grave without swimming from Cuba to Key West,” she paused, just before adding, “and remind me that I said that.”

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