I had brain surgery 2 months ago and now I’m running the NYC Half Marathon — anything is possible
NY Post
This New Yorker’s recovery should have been a marathon — but her resilience made it a sprint.
Leanna Scaglione was once wheelchair-bound and is recovering from a brain surgery she underwent two-and-a-half months ago, but this Sunday, she’s taking to the streets to run the 2024 United Airlines NYC Half Marathon.
“I just couldn’t see myself being in this wheelchair for the rest of my life,” the 32-year-old told The Post. “It was pure stubbornness that kind of drove me.”
It’s been a long haul for Scaglione, who was training to be a ballerina but suffered a dance-related hip injury at age 16. An MRI found something much worse — she developed a tumor “the size of a grapefruit” in her lower spine.
“I was not able to stand upright on my leg with full pressure for more than, like, five seconds,” she said. “Unfortunately, it left me in a wheelchair, unable to walk and stand.”
Scaglione said it took her about a year and a half to stand up and she “slowly but surely just continued to live out my life” as she learned to walk again.
It was a flashback to NYC in the 1990s.
The killing of Iran’s tyrannical Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Saturday in an unprecedented joint military attack by the US and Israel called Operation Epic Fury set off widespread celebrations from Iranians around the world — as President Trump said it would give them their “greatest chance” to “take back the country.” Meanwhile, in Iran, a lack of internet has made it impossible for Iranians to easily communicate daily conditions. Over a period of three days, with limited VPN connection, an eyewitness currently in Tehran — who, for her safety, is concealing her identity — shared her account of life under a country in the midst of battle with The Post’s Natasha Pearlman.
After exactly 120 years, the curtain has fallen on the Theater District institution Barbetta, with the iconic Italian restaurant having served its final course Friday night.