Running for a cause

By TIM DUMAS Chronicle Sports Writer

Lazy.

ALTON STRUPP/CHRONICLE Jodie DeLay stands for a portrait in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle studio on Friday afternoon. DeLay suffers from Crohn’s disease and will be running a half marathon to support research working toward a cure. That was her initial thought.

When her brother lost interest in sports, and in life, she chided him.

Slacker.

When, nearly 30 years later, her son started to recoil, instinct took over.

Loafer.

No. Not this time. There was a cause to this effect. No one knows that better than Jodie DeLay.

The Belgrade resident and former three-sport athlete at Chinook High School recognized the signs - the lethargy, the lost appetite, the pain. That was her 14 years ago.

“I was never a sick a day in my life,” DeLay, who turned 37 on July 10, said last week of her childhood and early adult years.

That was before the birth of her first child, Jackie, in 1994. How much did Jodie’s life begin to change that day? Here’s the short list: new mother; intense abdomen pain; chronic fatigue; rapid weight loss.

Some of that was brushed off as postpartum symptoms. When they not only remained but intensified a year later, something had to be done. Visits to the doctor, however, yielded little results: Delay was told she was working too hard as a mortgage lender at Valley Bank; that she was depressed.

But she wasn’t.

Her mother witnessed Jodie’s physique slowly disappearing and her constant trips to the bathroom and came to her own conclusion: anorexia.

Wrong again.

It wasn’t until DeLay, while meeting with a developer for a new subdivision, passed out - “straight to the ground,” she says - that doctors began to take her seriously.

On Sunday, the Butte native will run the Napa-to-Sonoma (Calif.) Wine Country Half Marathon, her first attempt at the 13.1-mile distance. The race has been rated by Runners World magazine as having the “Best Finish,” due to the scenery and post-race wine/music festival.

But while sipping grape sounds enticing, that is not why DeLay has chosen to participate.

DeLay, a past president of Associated Students of Montana State University (ASMSU) and now part of the school’s communications and public affairs department, hasn’t trained for 16 weeks to prove anything to herself. Rather, she’s raising money for Crohn’s disease, an affliction that has taken hold of Jodie and her family.

The disease, of which there is no cure, is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that causes inflammation of the digestive tract. Its effects can be found anywhere from the mouth to the intestines.

For DeLay, Crohn’s hit her right in the middle. Her bowel became swollen shut, disrupting the digestion process and robbing her system of much-needed vitamins and energy. Medicine and steroids eventually took some of the pain away, but not the disease.

It wasn’t until another three years had passed that the symptoms of Crohn’s returned in full force. By this time, it was 2001 and Jodie had 2-year-old Dylan to care for, when her bowel perforated, leading to emergency surgery and a year spent trying to recover.

Now she was depressed.

“I never left the house,” she said.

Eventually, with the help of a drug that is infused into her arm every eight weeks during a three-hour procedure, DeLay is feeling better. But Crohn’s never leaves her thoughts.

Her brother, Kody, who is one year older, was diagnosed three years ago, although it is believed the Gulf War veteran has been suffering for much longer.

When Kody was 10, while the family was living in Chinook, he stopped playing sports and trying out for school plays. He was tired and hurting, though he didn’t know why. Neither did anyone else.

“It was something where we all just gave him a hard time,” Jodie said. “My parents, myself.”

That attitude changed when Dylan, now 9, lost his desire a few weeks into his wrestling season two years ago. He had trouble eating and lost nine pounds.

At first, Jodie’s mind wandered: “he’s just afraid to fail.”

But experience told her different.

“If I didn’t know what I know about Kody and how long he suffered with it,” Jodie says, “I wouldn’t be doing anything for my son right now. I would just think he was a lazy kid - and he’s not.”

Dylan, like his mother, has learned to get his rest, eat properly and exercise.

Sunday’s half marathon will provide plenty of that last one. Jodie is the only Montanan running the Team Challenge, which is the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation’s new endurance training program.

Her goal is to raise $5,000 (as of Friday, she was at $4,485) to help the likes of Kody and her son - who has not been diagnosed with Crohn’s - and two cousins and an aunt who have.

“It really will make a difference,” Jodie said of the fund-raising. “There’s a lot of research that’s close; there’s a lot of connections being realized between things like Multiple Sclerosis and diabetes and autism. They’re starting to identify the genes. I, with everything in my being, think that that there will be better treatments and hopefully a cure in my lifetime. But there needs to be money.”

Jodie’s goal for Sunday’s race is to finish in 2 hours, 20 minutes. And when it’s over, she’ll begin training for the Bozeman Classic 5-kilometer race, a tradition started in 2002 and one she vows to continue while she remains healthy.

But the dark days that come with Crohn’s are still vivid. Days she wants to hold on to.

“You don’t ever want to forget being that sick,” DeLay said. “If you forget, then you don’t appreciate every single day any more. That’s one of the gifts that I’ve gotten.”

Tim Dumas can be reached at tdumas@dailychronicle.com and 582-2651.

How to donate

To make a tax deductible donation, go to www.active.com/donate/napa08national/JDeLay1 or send a check payable to CCFA (Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America) to 706 Home Run Drive, Belgrade, MT 59714. In order to have money applied to Jodie’s race, donations must be made by Aug. 16.

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