St Mary mother battles gallstones through 50-hour Supligen contest for $1m win

Monique Brown-Ramharrack, 36, pressed through every aching stretch of the first Supligen Big Boost Games’ demanding 50-hour endurance contest, treating each hard hour as progress toward goals she had long hoped to meet. The $1-million purse, she reasoned, could cover her daughter’s schooling and back her nephew’s career plans — so when illness struck mid-event, she refused to quit.

As captain of Team Phoenix, which also featured her 19-year-old daughter Tanique Dunn and her nephew Rushane Williams, Brown-Ramharrack told THE STAR the contest strained every competitor’s body, yet her health crisis raised the stakes further for her alone.

“I was so tired and I have gallstones, so the first night it start act up. But I couldn’t tell the kids because I know if I said anything to them, they would start fret. So I didn’t say anything and I couldn’t cry,” she said.

Gallstones are firm, stone-like masses — typically cholesterol or bilirubin — that develop inside the gallbladder and may be as tiny as sand grains or as large as a golf ball. They do not always trigger intense trouble, but Brown-Ramharrack said her episodes frequently overwhelm her.

“Normally I cry, scream, walking up and down, roll on the ground because it causes pain in my stomach. I would have extreme pain to the right ribs and if I eat certain things, I vomit, so I couldn’t eat as much as I should because we’re trying to win,” she said.

With seven figures at stake, the St Mary threesome dug in across the Supligen Big Boost Games, staged over roughly 50 hours from Thursday, July 9, through Saturday, July 11. Rules required teams to keep unbroken physical contact with one another and with the oversized Supligen Cup — so Brown-Ramharrack competed while a gallstone episode raged.

“I know they can’t stay up, so I made them sleep and I didn’t sleep for the two nights. I had to hold them together and hold the trophy,” she said.

For long stretches, she said, the trio remained linked by touch while she stayed joined to the cup. “I had to hold them together and rest my back on the trophy, using my two hands to either hold their foot together or their hands because I can’t hold their clothes, must be body,” she said with a laugh.

When the agony neared its peak, she told THE STAR, she clung to why she had entered. “I know Tanique want to go the college and I can’t come up with the money to attend, so I said ‘Father God, please let me win this’, and then my nephew want to join the JDF. I know you have to buy things and have money during camp, so I said I will hold this trophy as long as possible so they can get an opportunity to live their dreams,” she said.

For Dunn, the triumph advances her aim of studying agricultural science abroad. She conceded, though, that the group several times feared the bid was collapsing. “We almost got eliminated four times and we had to push through. The sun was a different type a challenge. We had to use the water to get the towels wet, and at one point when my mother was holding on to the trophy, I had to use the towel to wipe down her hands. Even now her hands are stripping,” she said.

Williams, meanwhile, embraced the physical grind as training for a future in the military. “I used to do track at Annotto Bay High School, so mi use to sun, and then I know I want to enter the force as an officer. So this is building the endurance and experience. So I know what is what. We slept on the ground and for me it was comfortable, ye man it was alright,” he said.

As the clock ran on, talk of relatives, ambitions, and race tactics sustained them. Once it became clear they would finish as winners, exhaustion lifted and thankfulness took its place.