I had brain surgery in January, now I’m running the NYC marathon

Leanna Scaglione — a former ballerina who completed a half marathon in March, just two months after brain surgery — is now preparing to run in the NYC Marathon on Sunday.

“This is my redemption ride,” the 32-year-old Upper East Sider told The Post.

Scaglione will tackle the 26.2-mile course less than a year after having a tumor removed from her brain. The procedure left her deaf in her right ear and with temporary facial paralysis. She could not move the right side of her face or smile, much less walk from one side of the apartment to the other.

“This was the hardest surgery I’ve ever been through,” said Scaglione, who works as a personal assistant. “But I just kept asking my doctor, ‘Can I start running again?’

Scaglione has been battling — and overcoming — serious health issues for years.

At 15, she got an MRI for what she thought was a ballet injury. That’s when doctors saw she had a “tumor the size of a grapefruit” in her lower spine. They diagnosed him with neurofibromatosis, an incurable genetic condition that causes tumors to grow throughout the body.

Scaglione had two surgeries to remove the tumor and was in a wheelchair for a year. “I lost feeling in my right leg, so I couldn’t stand on it,” she recalls. She was told she would never dance again. But that didn’t stop the teenager.

She eventually graduated to an infantryman and within two years moved out on her own.

“I would never allow it [my illness] determine how I would live my life,” Scaglione said.

Since then she has had 13 tumors removed – along her spine, along her wrists and most recently in her brain.

She started running during the pandemic as a means of escaping from being stuck inside.

“Like everyone else, I needed air,” she said. “At first I was afraid of nerve damage in my right leg… [but] next thing I knew, I ran a mile. I was so proud of myself and so shocked and excited that I was like, ‘I have to try again!’”

She now races regularly to raise money for the Children’s Tumor Foundation.

Scaglione ran the NYC Marathon last year, but she had to walk much of it after a brain tumor growing on a major nerve leading to her right ear grew so large that it damaged her hearing. and balance.

Last January, doctors removed the brain tumor and added an auditory brain implant to help him with voice recognition.

Now, she aims to run a fast race on Sunday and finish in under four hours. She has already signed up for three marathons – London, Berlin and New York City – in 2025 as a national ambassador for the Children’s Tumor Foundation.

“Doing these races, it’s a physical way for me to say, ‘I can do this.’ i understand I handled this. I could go on,” Scaglione said. “The thing I learned the most is that this diagnosis should not control and define our lives. This does not mean that our life stops. We just roll.”