30-01-2025
The race to recovery is already won before one runner begins the Life Time Miami Half-Marathon
Completing the Life Time Miami Half-Marathon is an achievement for anyone but for Farouk Gomati, crossing the finish line Sunday will mark the culmination of an 11-year journey that is nothing short of miraculous.
Gomati's journey began in 2013. At the time, he lived in Miami and toured the globe playing music. He was newly married and just welcomed a newborn son.
'I was on the top of the world,' Gomati said. 'I wasn't stressed, and I was doing what I love.'
Then it all came crashing down. Gomati, a professional drummer who toured around the world with Colombian evangelical singer Alex Campos, was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS).
GBS is a rare condition that occurs when your immune system attacks your peripheral nerves, leaving those diagnosed most often paralyzed from the legs down, but in some rare cases, completely paralyzed.
Gomati was a rare case. Just days after returning home to Miami after a tour, Gomati woke up with a weird tingling in his toes.
'The sensation kept on going for the whole day, but I was not feeling bad, so I didn't pay attention to it actually,' Gomati said.
The next morning, the feeling had reached his ankles. The third day, up to his hands. And by the fourth day he was mute. He went to the emergency room multiples times during this period, but he was sent home every time as they claimed he was just excited to be a new father.
On the fifth day, he was finally admitted. One day later, Gomati was put into a medically-induced coma for three weeks and diagnosed with GBS.
'I woke up and the first thing I thought was, Oh, thank god I'm not dead,' Gomati said. 'But after the initial relief, a constant agony arrived when I realized that I was 100% paralyzed. It felt like being underwater and feeling you're going to drown, but you never actually drown.'
That is where Gomati's miraculous recovery began, at rock bottom.
'They told my wife, if he makes it, he's going to be connected to a ventilator for the rest of his life and in a wheelchair,' Gomati said. 'My wife told them, 'You know what? I believe in miracles. I won't accept that.''
She was right and Gomati began to improve shortly after waking up. His nervous system started returned, and soon he was off a ventilator learning to breathe again. Within two years, Gomati was almost fully recovered, and it was nothing short of a miracle.
He credits his family and faith with his recovery but still must fulfill one final promise.
'There was one day in the rehab center where I was just so depressed. I didn't want to do rehab therapy. I didn't want to do anything.' Gomati said, 'So I started having this conversation with God. Asking him things like, 'Why is this so difficult or what is going on.''
Then Gomati made the promise he will fulfill Sunday.
'If one day I can say that I'm a walking miracle because I got off the wheelchair and I'm able to walk again, I promised God, I would run a race and share my story.' Gomati said.
Eleven years after that promise, Gomati is on the top of the world again. He has a happy family, and he has shifted his career to become the president of Interworld Freight, the family business, but he still needs to fulfill his promise.
Gomati's entire family will be at the finish line and when he crosses, most will consider him nothing short of a living miracle, but he will look over at his family and into the sky, because to him, faith and family are the only reason he is still here.
