Augie In Action! Augie In Action! - Ihrsa
Augie In Action! Augie In Action! - Ihrsa
Augie In Action! Augie In Action! - Ihrsa
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<strong>Augie</strong> Ongoing<br />
<strong>Augie</strong>’s Quest: An Excerpt<br />
60 Club Business <strong>In</strong>ternational | MARCH 2008 | www.ihrsa.org<br />
The trouble began with a sharp twinge in the summer of 2004. Forty-six-yearold<br />
<strong>Augie</strong> Nieto had endured bouts of lumbar pain before, but this one was<br />
different, more tenacious and acute. The discomfort lasted for weeks and only<br />
ebbed after a full course of prednisone and three epidural injections. <strong>Augie</strong><br />
attributed the ordeal to overexertion and middle age, but what seemed at the<br />
time an isolated episode would soon take on grimmer significance. That<br />
twinge would prove to be the opening salvo in a cascading calamity.<br />
Over the course of the following months, <strong>Augie</strong> noticed a gradual erosion<br />
in his strength and endurance. A lifelong weight lifter, marathoner, and<br />
evangelical fitness fanatic, <strong>Augie</strong> was soon incapable of training with his<br />
customary hundred-pound weights. Then ninety pounds proved too much.<br />
Then eighty. And seventy. At length, he was reduced to working out with forty-pound weights,<br />
which he blamed largely on his weak back but also on the curious state of his right arm.<br />
The muscles had begun to twitch. The entire limb was alive, day and night, with rapid-fire,<br />
involuntary contractions. The condition was painless but maddening.<br />
By early 2005, <strong>Augie</strong>’s speech had slowed perceptibly, and he was having difficulty reaching<br />
across his body with his right hand to spread shaving cream on his left cheek. A January trip<br />
to Vietnam found <strong>Augie</strong> waterskiing on the Mekong River, where the towrope pulled out of his<br />
hands, a novel experience for this veteran outdoorsman. “I’d never had that happen to me<br />
before,” <strong>Augie</strong> confessed. “I came home and told my wife, ‘We’ve got to check this out.’ ”<br />
At the time <strong>Augie</strong> had no personal physician, but through the years he’d undergone numerous<br />
biannual executive physicals at the Mayo Clinic’s Scottsdale facility. When he called for an<br />
appointment, the staff was quick to accommodate him,<br />
“<br />
and <strong>Augie</strong> and Lynne Nieto flew from their Southern<br />
That twinge would prove California home to Arizona on the evening of March 23.<br />
to be the opening salvo in a The following morning, <strong>Augie</strong> met with the physician who<br />
cascading calamity.<br />
”<br />
would serve as coordinator and quarterback for the<br />
battery of tests he would undergo in the ensuing two days.<br />
The Mayo Clinic prefers to start cold with its patients.<br />
Its doctors consult no past histories but begin anew with every evaluation. <strong>Augie</strong> merely<br />
provided a description of his symptoms, and a team of physicians—specialists in far-ranging<br />
fields—began quizzing and prodding him as they set about working with exhaustive<br />
deliberation toward a diagnosis. They analyzed <strong>Augie</strong>’s blood chemistry, subjected him<br />
to thoroughgoing motor reflex tests, and performed both a CT scan and an MRI in a bid to<br />
pinpoint the cause of his degenerating strength.<br />
Everyone hoped that the trouble would prove to be relatively benign, a case of heightened<br />
stress and overexertion or, possibly, chronic Lyme disease. But by Friday afternoon, <strong>Augie</strong>’s<br />
team had only succeeded in eliminating potential culprits, not identifying a cause.<br />
<strong>In</strong> a final meeting that day, a clinic neurologist asked <strong>Augie</strong> to stick out his tongue. “Thank<br />
God it’s not vibrating,” the doctor told him. “That’s a symptom of ALS”— amyotrophic lateral<br />
sclerosis, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. ALS remains incurable and is invariably<br />
fatal, typically within three to five years.<br />
<strong>Augie</strong> passed along the news to his wife as they drove to the airport for their flight home.<br />
“They don’t know what it is,” he told her, “but at least it’s not ALS.”<br />
<strong>Augie</strong>’s lead physician had requested that he return to Scottsdale the following Monday.<br />
“You never,” <strong>Augie</strong> quips these days, “want to get called back to the Mayo Clinic.” <strong>Augie</strong>’s