LI Runner With HIV, Cancer Heads To Kenya To Help Orphans, 'Give Hope'

NASSAU COUNTY, NY — Richard Brodsky believes he may be the only person in the world who runs marathons while being HIV positive and battling brain cancer. The 70-year-old Atlantic Beach resident and retired architect told Patch he's been searching Google, but seems to be the only person with that unique set of circumstances.

But Brodsky isn't exactly wallowing in self-pity. The avid runner will complete five marathons this year alone and qualified for the elite 2023 Boston Marathon. On Friday, he is heading to Kenya for the 16th time, accompanied by Glen Cove pediatrician Richard Sartori.

Their mission is simple: Supporting orphaned children who need medical care, and to raise awareness for AIDS. The two, with Brodsky's foundation The Richard M. Brodsky Foundation, hope to feed and provide needed care to 800 to 1,000 orphans in Kenya, Brodsky told Patch.

Brodsky and his wife Jodi have been running a marathon on World Aids Day for 19 years. They ran it in Africa until this year, when they organized the World Aids Marathon, held Dec. 1 in Rockaway Park. The race raised money for health services in low income Nassau County and Queens areas.

The Rockaway marathon, half-marathon, 10K and 5K race was the only marathon in North America held on World Aids Day, Brodsky said. The race acknowledges the 40 million people who have died from AIDS worldwide.

Brodsky and Sartori will be in Kisumu, Kenya from Dec. 9-19, where they will visit several missions serving orphans, giving them needed medical care. Dr. Sartori runs a pediatric practice in Garden City.

"I fell in love with Kenya when I went there. I didn't know what I was doing when I first went," he recalled.

"We fed the orphans, we danced with them. I get just as much out of it as the kids do. It gives me perspective."

Sartori says the hardest part is when he has to leave, wondering if the kids will be there next year. Some need a hug as much as medical treatment, he says. He remembers treating a 14-year-old HIV positive girl for pneumonia and wanting to make sure she got follow-up care. He asked when she would see a doctor next.

"They pointed at me. I'm the only doctor some of them will see the whole year."

Brodsky was diagnosed with HIV in 1997, and in 2002, terminal brain cancer. Because of his avid interest in running, he researched how the medications would affect his performance. That's when he realized no one else he could find had the same dual diagnosis.

"I realized that I was in uncharted territory," he said.

Doctors gave Brodsky two to four years to live and insisted he undergo chemotherapy. But he instead found a doctor, Casilda Balmaceda, a New York City neurologist, who agreed to treat him without chemotherapy. He ended up finishing the New York City 2003 marathon side-by-side with Dr. Balmaceda, who gave him the idea to start a foundation to help people with both HIV and cancer. She is now on the board of his foundation.

"Funny coincidences always seem to happen to me," Brodksy says, and the sport of running made another providential, or, as Brodsky believes, even divine, connection when he met Dr. Sartori.

"I kept finishing at the exact same time at a bunch of local Nassau County races as this one guy, race after race."

After striking up a conversation, Brodsky and Sartori realized they shared an interest in wanting to help children, and Sartori became the first doctor the foundation brought to Kenya.

When Brodsky started his foundation in 2004 and told people he wanted to go to Africa, "no one was really taking me seriously," he said, and he struggled to find medical doctors who would accompany him.

Now Sartori donates medical care and buys needed supplies and medicine in Kenya, and will give free medical exams to orphans on the trip.

"It's amazing how many lives he's been able to save," Brodsky said.

"When I first started the foundation, I was very naive. I thought they just needed AIDS medicine [in Africa] but then I realized there was so much need, for water, food, education."

He's seen an improvement in conditions in Kenya since his first trip in 2004, but HIV positivity rates are still over 20 percent, he says.

In addition to the medical exams, the foundation will host dinner-dances for the orphans, and stage an informal 5K race. Brodsky had a local African hand paint a shirt for the World Aids Marathon, and he's heading to the airport with 100 shirts in his luggage.

Over the years, Brodsky and his team have met former President Obama's Kenyan grandmother, received letters of support from Obama and former President Clinton, and raised over $500,000. But the money isn't the only focus, he says.

"I like to give people hope."

As for how Brodsky is still running marathons a decade after a terminal cancer diagnosis, he credits a healthy lifestyle and being privileged to obtain crucial HIV/AIDS medicine.

"That's one of the reasons I do this," he said, to help others get the same lifesaving medications.

Brodsky also credits support from his wife, "a very fast" marathon runner in her own right, he said, and positive thinking.

"I asked my wife if she would agree to run a marathon with me on my 100th birthday. She said yes, and two weeks later, when we got to the Albany marathon, guess what my bib number was?"

Brodsky was lucky number 100.