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Tattoo Boy's Journey....

Wednesday, 31 October 2018 23:10

By MedCityBeat.com (Oct.22, 2018)

Among the brilliant neon tones of running shoes and technical outerwear at TerraLoco in Rochester, there’s another bright spot: Team USA triathlete, 36 year-old Michael Karau.
Just a few short years ago, though, you’d have been hard-pressed to get him into a shop like this.

“I thought athletes were silly,” explains Karau. “I thought, ‘They wear bright stuff, they look like goofballs, they’re wearing spandex. Who would want to do that?’”

“At that point in my life, I wasn’t really taking care of myself the best. I was using drugs, drinking a lot of energy drinks, drinking a lot of alcohol, just making a lot of bad decisions.”  ...

Then, at 32, he stepped on a nail during yard work. It gave him a staph infection, which led to kidney failure, which led to Karau passed out in a Best Buy while Christmas shopping. He missed his son’s first hockey practice and was promptly re-admitted to the hospital. He was stuck there for two weeks. Relegated to nothing but ice water for his first four days, he soon lost his taste for sugar. A healthy new dawn was breaking.

“Finally, they said okay, you can have some juice with some ice. I was like, ‘This is kind of gross. It’s all full of sugar. I just want more ice water.”  READ MORE