Cathy Fisher used to love burpees, which were part of her regular CrossFit workouts. For now, however, the 61-year-old Omaha, Nebraska, woman is happy to be doing a modified version of the vigorous calisthenics — which usually includes jumping up, squatting to the floor and kicking back into a pushup — with the help of a barbell mounted on a squat rack. “Maybe I’m going to get back to full burpees, sometime,” Fisher said partway through a recent hourlong workout led by Clay Fisher, the youngest of her four sons and a coach and personal trainer at Big Omaha Fitness.
But even her modified exercises represent what her doctors call a remarkable recovery. Fisher spent a month at Methodist Hospital last fall after developing neuroinvasive West Nile disease, a rare complication of the mosquito-borne virus that strikes fewer than 1% of those infected. Cathy Fisher of Omaha, right, is back to modified CrossFit workouts after suffering a near-fatal bout of neuroinvasive West Nile disease last fall.
She’s coached by son Clay Fisher. She left the hospital still on a ventilator and spent two months at Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals’ Omaha campus, followed by an additional two months at QLI rehabilitation center. Nearly eight months after leaving Methodist, she continues to work on building her strength, endurance and balance.
She is continuing modified CrossFit classes at QLI and working out at Big Omaha Fitness, where she had been a regular. She recently was able to jog, .