COLUMBUS, Ohio (WKRC/WBNS/CNN Newsource) - Morgan Grant is set to participate in the TCS New York City Marathon this weekend, marking her first marathon since undergoing brain surgery earlier this year.
"This is like the perfect comeback, the perfect first thing to do post-op," said Grant.
Less than six months after her surgery, Grant was preparing to lace up her running shoes again.
"It's going to be a very different marathon for me. It's going to be a slow one, it's going to be a lot of listening to what I need when I need it and really just enjoying it for what it is and all that my body had been through in the past 10 months," she said.
Grant was training for the Boston Marathon earlier this year when she began experiencing intense facial pain, initially thought to be a sinus infection.
"It eventually pretty much made me bedridden for days upon days. I was no longer a functioning human, just because the pain in my face and my head and my neck had pretty much debilitated me," she said.
After two months of doctor's appointments, she was diagnosed with a Chiari malformation, a skull abnormality that causes part of the brain to move into the spinal canal, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Despite the diagnosis in March, Grant was determined to complete the Boston Marathon in April.
"This was like my next big goal, like this was what I was going to do," she said.
Roughly two weeks after crossing the finish line in Boston, she underwent surgery.
"I was really, really, really scared and that's kind of why I needed the New York Marathon, or pretty much anything after. I was really searching for something to give me hope," said Grant.
This weekend, she will run with the Brain Injury Association of New York State team in her first marathon post-op.