According to Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s trainer, the Supreme Court justice is still going strong.
Following a series of health struggles for the 86-year-old justice, Ginsburg’s personal trainer met with a reporter for ABC7 in Washington — and he described his client as a fighter.
“She’s never, ever told me can’t,” trainer Bryant Johnson told ABC7’s Alison Starling. “She’s made little facial expressions at me several times but she’s never, ever said can’t.”
Keeping up with RBG
Johnson, a court clerk and Army reservist who has served as Ginsburg’s personal trainer “for well over 20 years,” described Ginsburg as being like a “grandmother” to him. In 2017, Johnston wrote a book on his star client called The RBG Workout.
“Justice Ginsburg, you could say she’s like my grandmother,” Johnson said, according to ABC7. “We’ve been training together for well over 20 years.”
Johnson went on to tell Starling that Ginsburg was adamant about resuming her training after she completed treatment for pancreatic cancer earlier this year.
“They said, ‘The justice wants to see you.’ I’m thinking to myself, ‘You just got released from the hospital,'” Johnson recalled. “‘She still wants to see you,’ [they said.] So I actually met her at her house. And it wasn’t the fact that we could do a whole lot but it was the fact that she needed to see where she was and we’re [going to] take it from that point.”
A history of health problems
But despite her moxie, Ginsburg has suffered from increasing health problems in recent years. She missed oral arguments on Nov. 13 due to what the court called a “stomach bug,” prompting a statement from Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg and comments from Chief Justice John Roberts, according to the Associated Press.
That came following a surprise diagnosis of pancreatic cancer for the justice last summer. Ginsburg underwent a three-week course of radiation treatment in August for a malignant tumor on her pancreas. She also had a bile duct stent implanted, according to Politico.
In late 2019, she had two cancerous nodules from her lungs, Fox News reported.
The lung cancer only came to light as the result of a serious fall she suffered last November. The accident left Ginsburg with three fractured ribs, according to NBC News, although it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
NBC quoted one expert as saying: “It’s possible, without knowing the specifics of her case, that early detection because of those broken ribs saved her life.”
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