The World's Toughest Athlete?

Matt Tullis spotlights three-time world horseshoes champion Brian Simmons:

To understand the truly remarkable nature of Simmons’ victories at this tournament, and to understand why so many in the audience at this tournament worry about him and his performance, you have to go back to a time long before Simmons was ever a world champion.
In the late 1980s, his mother Bertha was diagnosed with cervical cancer. She died at the age of 52 in 1989. A short time later, Simmons learned he had colon cancer. He was 29 years old. Surgeons removed his large colon, which means Simmons has a colostomy bag. That is why Simmons wears big, loose-fitting t-shirts. When he releases the horseshoe and his shirt is pulled tight against his abdomen, you can see the outline of the bag.
Having his colon removed was one of the best things that ever happened to him, Simmons says. It stopped his Crohn’s symptoms, which allowed him pitch horseshoes competitively again. So having his colon removed was easy and nothing compared to the long list of troubles he would face in the 2000s, after he had become a world champion.

In 2003, he suffered heart troubles and had an angioplasty performed. This caused him to miss the tournament that year, and in turn, miss the chance to defend his title. In 2004, he suffered a serious stroke that made it impossible for him to pitch horseshoes. In 2006, as he was still recovering from the stroke, he went in for surgery to repair a hernia and the surgeon nicked his intestine.
“I became septic and almost died there,” Simmons says matter-of-factly. “It was a rough four years.”
It took him a year to recover from that hernia surgery. Finally, though, he felt strong enough to pitch competitively. He planned to pitch in the world tournament in 2008 and started practicing. Then, just two weeks before the tournament, he suffered another stroke. A friend was with him, though, and got him to a nearby fire station quickly. Paramedics got him to the hospital quickly, and this allowed doctors to give him t-PA, a drug that breaks up the clot that had blocked blood flow in the brain. It stopped the stroke and saved Simmons from suffering any long-term damage.

The whole article is fascinating.  I didn't realize that the 16-time world champion was from Defiance, Ohio.