Alumni raises awareness for disease through running

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Since January, Brian Lane has run in 14 races in 14 different states. He has driven countless hours across the U.S. — from Alabama to Arizona — and stayed with strangers offering a spare bed or couch.

Still, the MSU alumnus is only about one-quarter of the way.

The races, the long hours spent driving and the many other sacrifices all are part of Lane’s nonprofit FiftyTwo4Mom, which he began in June 2009. The group is devoted to raising money and awareness for optic nerve diseases after one caused his mother to lose her vision.

“The courage my mom has shown has been inspiring and encouraging to me,” Lane said. “A lot of people would have crumbled.”

Since his first race in January, Lane’s goal is to run a race in every state, one in Washington, D.C., and the final race at his alma mater, MSU. Currently, Lane has raised about $5,000 and hopes to meet his goal of $1 million.

“I really wanted to do something to show how much she’s meant to me to raise awareness, and one day hopefully they find something to help her,” Lane said. “And if not, (it will) show her what an inspiration she’s been in other people’s lives.”

Lane’s organization donates the money to research for the treatment and prevention of optic nerve diseases because he said his mother’s blindness could have been prevented had the nervedamage been detected earlier.

When Lane was a senior in high school, his mother, Terry Lane, tripped and sustained a concussion. She experienced short-term memory loss and was unaware of the accident until she began losing sight in her left eye three months later.

“They spent about three weeks running every test they could on her,” Brian Lane said. “The doctors didn’t really know what was going on.”

Although his mother’s eyesight continued to deteriorate, she learned to adapt at her job as a patient care attendant in her left eye.

Exactly one year later, she rapidly started losing vision in her right eye while at work and by the end of the day, she was blind.

“It was absolutely scary,” Terry Lane said. “For the first three years, I was in almost total darkness. If you turned the lights on, it didn’t matter.”

Eventually with steroid treatment and determination not to give up, she regained some of her sight, although she remains legally blind.

“It’s kind of like tunnel vision in both eyes,” Brian Lane said. “She can’t see from side to side, she can’t see below her chin and in her left eye, she has no depth perception.”

As soon as his mother lost sight in her left eye, Brian Lane transferred to MSU to be closer to home in Waterford, Mich., in case of an emergency.

“His first words were, ‘Mom, you’ll forget what I looked like,’” Terry Lane said. “That was his first thought.”

Brian Lane said he has been a runner his entire life and decided on races because the atmosphere created by the runners is conducive to raising awareness. The races alone are a platform for FiftyTwo4Mom alone — Brian Lane does not plan to win all or even any of the races.

When Brian Lane started the organization, he said people doubted he would follow through with his pledge of 52 races. “Most people may look at what I’m doing and think I’m a little crazy, but it’s catching on,” Brian Lane said.

Brian Lane’s former boss, Jessica Merritt, of Warren, Mich., said Brian Lane spent every lunch break prior to starting the organization researching and speaking with people who were interested in donating.

“To start something from scratch and do it on your own — I personally don’t have the motivation to do it,” Merritt said. “You have to have the drive.”

Brian Lane said he has heard many stories from other people who also are suffering or have suffered from an optic nerve disease, but are reluctant to share their experiences.

“It’s a lot more common than people think but no one wants to talk about it because it scares people,” Brian Lane said. “People who have lost their sight completely are more willing to talk about it than people who are losing their sight because they don’t want to think that they could go completely blind.”

Brian Lane said his mother was the person who pushed her son to get into sports, and even though it might be difficult for her to see the action, he makes a point to bring his mother to a sporting event every year.

“She loves the atmosphere,” Brian Lane said. “She can’t always tell who the players are, but it helps her to feel normal.”

Although nothing has been finalized at MSU, Brian Lane plans to arrange a half marathon at night with relay teams of four near April 2012 — his targeted end date.

Terry Lane said her son constantly is bringing up new ideas and plans for the organization.

“Every day he reminds me of how excited he is about what he’s doing,” Terry Lane said. “You hope to think that you were part of all that.”

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