Blog « The World Tri

Phony Fire, Real Warmth

April 3, 2011

On April 6, 2011, a team of 14 cancer survivors ranging from ages 27-64 will travel from the flat fields of Iowa to the tallest mountains on the planet -the Himalayas of Nepal- to trek to base camp of Mt. Everest. The group’s three-week quest is an inception of The World Tri creator Charlie Wittmack, and is being organized and led by Dr. Richard Deming, Medical Director of Mercy Cancer Center in Des Moines.

www.theworldtri.com will unfold stories of these unique individuals and their experiences as they embark on this once-in-a-lifetime journey.

STORY BY BRIAN TRIPLETT
DESIGN BY CHELSEA LISTER

Because she had quite a crush on the host of show, Emelia Chadwick would frequently cozy up to the television to watch Nightly News with Brian Williams. She’ll never forget one particular story being discussed when she turned on NBC, which suggested that women did not need to conduct self-exams for breast cancer until a later age on the basis that so many young women were getting stressed due to misdiagnosis.

She was irate. Chadwick sat down at the computer and crafted an angry email. But before she could hit send, she punched a wrong button and the message was lost. She lacked the energy to write another and instead headed for her bed. She’d had too many sleepless nights in a row after her double mastectomy. Battling breast cancer wasn’t easy, especially at 25.

***

Every time Mary Chadwick sees fireworks, they make her sad. The night after her oldest daughter was diagnosed with cancer, the family went to a 4th of July celebration at a local golf course. Now whenever she sees explosions in the sky, the thinks of that day. Her mother died of the illness at 57. She begins to cry when she thinks of the effects the disease has had on her family.

“At that point I had wished it was me,” Mary said from the living room where she spent countless hours with her daughter during her recovery.

Mary Chadwick lost her job as a nurse during the recession of 2008. If she could have chosen the best time for it to happen, this was it. Emelia had moved into an office converted to a bedroom in her parents’ home for the year of her diagnoses, and found herself with a 24-hour nurse and a full-time friend.

“At the time I was really upset, but I told myself this was meant to be because I could be with my daughter,” Mary Chadwick said.

It allowed her to attend Emelia’s appointments with her, cook, watch back-to-back comedy movies, and simply just be there.

Allen Chadwick sniffles quietly in the chair next to his wife as soon as the word cancer is brought up. He calmly walks over to grab a tissue and takes his seat again.

“When I found out, I was crushed and really afraid for Emelia because I assumed that she was frail and I thought this would ruin her life,” Allen said. “I was just totally overwhelmed by how mentally strong she was or could be and turned out to be. It was hard to be as positive as she was.”

The tears soon turn to laughter as the Chadwicks reminisce about the silliness that was a result of the restlessness inside their home.

Both Emelia and her parents can vividly recall the story in which Allen came home from work to witness his wife and daughter sitting next to the electric fireplace with cotton balls poked through by skewers as if they were roasting marshmallows. Emelia had found comic relief that year in a series of commercials for a product called Snuggies featuring a family laughing gaily around a bonfire in their Snuggies – basically blankets with holes cut out for your arms. Emelia and her mother decided to recreate the scene after an aunt had sent a buy-one-get-one-free pair in the mail as a gag gift.

“You two got goofy,” Allen says to his wife. “I never knew what I’d find.”

Any time Emelia would feel uncomfortable on the couch during her treatment and recovery, her dad would throw pillows on the floor and lie on the ground with her. They called it camping. It even had rules.

One evening, after watching a horror movie, Allen, who did not handle them well, resorted to his bedroom. Emelia and her mom got the idea to cut holes out of paper towels in order to resemble the villain and scare their unsuspecting victim.

“He jumped so high,” Emelia Chadwick remembered with a smile. “It’s moments like those that just make you forget just for a moment that you’re sick.”

When Chadwick ached, which she did often, Mary would rub her back and Allen would rub her feet. The days weren’t easy ones for their daughter, but the parents tried their best to massage the pain away in every way they knew how as well as in ways they didn’t.

***

There came a point when Chadwick made her parents go out on Saturday nights for her sake, for their sake, for the sake of everyone's sanity.

At the worst times when she was feeling sad, ugly and afraid, she would yell at her mom in reaction to nothing justifiable. Mary would just sit and listen while Emelia stomped off to her room only to return 15 minutes later for apologies and hugs. Her mom would hold her and whisper that she loved her.

“It’s really hard on relationships, spouses and friends and families because they have to deal with it, too,” Chadwick said of her fight with cancer. “I constantly felt like I was a burden. I constantly felt like everything had to revolve around me. I tried to make it easy for my parents. I didn’t want to push them away in any kind of way. I needed them.”

Ever since her childhood, she thought of her parents as strong, powerful people. She remembers her dad being there in one hop anytime she’d run off as a little girl. It was strange to see them being overcome with so much emotion.

“I don’t think my dad ever wanted to cry around me because he thought that would make me sad,” Chadwick said.

A lot of tears have fallen on the living room campground. Cancer has made Chadwick emotional, she claims. There are some shows she no longer watches because they are too sad.

“Sometimes commercials make me cry,” she says, laughing at herself. “There’s this one right now that gets me. I don’t even know what the commercial is for.”

***

It was sometime around the end of middle school that Chadwick heard about the powers of cauliflower. It prevented breast cancer. Why would a 12-year-old not believe that? Knowing that her grandmother had died from the disease before she was even born, Chadwick would spot the pale vegetable at a party and go to town on it like it was the last platter on earth.

“I remember thinking when I got diagnosed, ‘But I ate my cauliflower,’” she said.

While Chadwick, now 27, has come to terms with the fact that the edible plant may not be the magic solution, she has taken the idea of self-exams very seriously since she was a teen. She began conducting them on herself routinely starting around the age of 16. Combined with her mother’s advice, learning that the disease was genetic in her high school human biology class had her taking her health seriously. She made a point to get to know her body, what was normal and what was not.

The day she found the lump, she knew immediately it did not fall under the ‘normal’ category. Even though it was in the family, she thought of herself as being too young to possibly have cancer. She visited the same family practice doctor she had seen since childhood just to be safe.

“She just had this look in her eyes and I just knew that it wasn’t what I wanted to hear,” Chadwick said.

Within three days of the initial visit, she received the news.

“You never expect them to say, ‘Yes, it is cancer,’” she said.

She had done everything right and ever eaten her cauliflower, but at 25, Emelia Chadwick’s young life changed. At least she caught it early. Had she listened to what she remembers hearing on the news report, who knows what might have happened?

***

“When you’re sick, you never think you’re going to get back to normalcy,” Chadwick said.

With a bald head, pale skin and dark circles under her eyes, Chadwick felt down on herself. Then there was the double mastectomy and the scars.

“I considered myself mutated,” she said. “It’s not mutated like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That’s kind of cool. I didn’t like to see myself in the mirror.”

She remembers watching movies of a genre she labels, "stupid, corny, fairy tales," and crying.

"I would sit there and think nobody’s gonna want me. Nobody’s gonna want this body. I never thought I would be back to what I used to be.”

She was single before her cancer and had gone on a pair of dates with a guy who told her, “Call me when you’re all good to go,” after she told him of her diagnoses. Needless to say, he never heard from her again.

His loss. As Emelia Chadwick sits in a coffee shop present day, with beautiful blue eyes, relatively long brown hair, a contagious smile, and a boyfriend of a year, she makes an interesting point.

“You never think of who had cancer because they just look normal,” she said, looking the epitome of normal.

She’s gained confidence. She’s learned to like her body. She’s getting back in shape. She’s going to Nepal this week to hike to Mount Everest.

The only things that seems to linger from her cancer are the heart-warming memories of the antics that took place in that living room during 2008.

When asked if they still have the Snuggies, Emelia’s parents shake their heads.

“I hope we don’t,” her father says. “I hate those things.”

Emelia knows right where hers is. It’s on the top shelf in her apartment closet. She’s thought many times of donating it to Goodwill, but she can’t bring herself to do it.

“It’s the cheapest thing ever made,” she says. “And it doesn’t even keep you warm.”

But she keeps it because it used to. And in a way, similar to a fake fireplace, she can still feel its heat.

---

Questions or comments on this story? Email the author at: brian.triplett@gmail.com

Forgetting the Rain

April 3, 2011

Brian Triplett

www.theworldtri.com will unfold stories of these unique individuals and their experiences as they embark on this once-in-a-lifetime journey.

STORY BY BRIAN TRIPLETT
DESIGN BY CHELSEA LISTER

It was such a cold spring that the family dog’s water bowl would often freeze over during the night the year that Lynnette Richey, her husband and their small child lived in a 26-foot camper outside Rochester, Minnesota. Chad Richey remembers a struggle with faulty Internet connection, which was imperative to run his business, and lots and lots of rain. Lynnette remembers watching countless movies from Blockbuster on a small TV and eating lots and lots of mac and cheese. Parker was only two at the time and doesn’t remember any of it.

Minnesota and Rochester and living in a campground for five weeks were never part of the plan for the Richeys, who hail from Nebraska and Iowa, but cancer doesn’t let you call the shots. That’s where the Mayo Clinic was, and if that’s what it took to make her breast cancer go away, then so be it.

The one thing they could control was their attitude. The couple smiles thinking about the funny memories from the camper that year. Lynnette can't even recall the rain.

The quiet yet friendly 38-year-old completed radiation therapy in February and confirmed, three days ago from a PET scan, that she does not currently have cancer.

“I won’t have that on my shoulders when I’m climbing to Mount Everest,” Lynnette Richey said of her upcoming trip with a group of fellow cancer survivors. “One less thing to carry around.”

She’s had to lug it too long, too many times. Richey was first diagnosed in 2003 and developed recurrences in 2005 and then again in 2009-2010.

“I’m always finding things,” she says with a mixed-emotion expression.

“Quit lookin’,” her husband Chad jokes.

After cancer became part of her personal life, she took it one step further and made it her profession. It’s even in her email address now. Richey pursued a position as an executive assistant at the American Cancer Society, a “dream job” in which she supports volunteers and tries her best to contribute to the cause any way possible.

“I truly hope this young scientist out there is gonna find a cure,” she said.

The couple seems happy as can be. An intelligent, adorable, healthy 8-year-old son and the fact the are traveling together to Nepal this week for an 18-day excursion to the base camp of Mt. Everest likely contribute to their light moods. Yes, they will be in tight quarters. Yes, any water bottles left outside may freeze overnight. But they will be living in a basic, natural setting for a difference reason this time around. It’s not to fight cancer. It’s to celebrate the fact that it’s disappeared, hopefully for good.

Parker will not be joining. He will stay with grandparents while his parents travel to the other side of the world. The clever boy did, however, strike perhaps the best deal an 8-year-old has ever managed. For every day his parents are gone, they must bring him back a present.

“We’re back peddling trying to figure out how to get out of this one,” Chad jokes of the promise to haul 18 gifts back to the U.S.

Parker didn’t understand why he couldn’t go but his father gets to. “Dad doesn’t have cancer,” he reasoned.

The boy will settle for the multitude of knickknacks, which he expects will be, “Nepal stuff.” And when it boils down to his true desires, Parker admits he doesn’t want to go to Nepal. Where would he like to go?

“Maybe the Bahamas. My grandma told me about it there. Or the Florida Keys.”

He will miss his parents, he says. And they’ll think of him often, too. At least 18 times.

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Questions or comments on this story? Email the author at: brian.triplett@gmail.com

The Principal of Power

April 2, 2011

Brian Triplett

www.theworldtri.com will unfold stories of these unique individuals and their experiences as they embark on this once-in-a-lifetime journey.

STORY BY BRIAN TRIPLETT
DESIGN BY CHELSEA LISTER

As the snow dumped down on an ordinary weekday morning in December of 2008, Linda Hoskins received an alert on her phone informing her that classes would be cancelled at Albia High School and elsewhere that day. This news surely excited a majority of schoolchildren across the community, as it meant they could spend the afternoon sledding, goofing off with friends, lounging in sweatpants, whatever they pleased. But Hoskins, the high school principal in the cozy town of 3,500, lay in bed pumping her fists in silent celebration for a different reason.

“Inside I was cheering because nobody else got to be at school either,” she said.

Hoskins, 54 at the time, was in the middle of fighting off Hodgkin’s Lymphoma with chemotherapy. Her doctor had ordered her to stay home that week while her immune system and energy level were low. Impressively, she missed only 13 and a half days that school year, but it was 13 and a half too many for her liking.

“I hated every day I had to be gone from Albia High School,” recalls Hoskins today, sitting in her office chair surrounded by the many pictures, photos and notes that take care of the interior decorating.

Playing a math game in her mind, she would subtract one from her total-days-missed count every time a snow day occurred, which happened a few times that winter. This brought the official total down to 11. Not perfect, but better.

When the time came to address her staff with the news that she had cancer, Hoskins couldn’t bring herself to say the word no matter how many times she had rehearsed it in front of the mirror. She stayed strong, following her motto, “Fake it ‘til you know it,” not wanting anyone to worry. The opening icebreaker in the form of a story that the nurse had called her Linda “Hodgkins” by mistake at her last visit cracked a few smiles, but she had to work hard to hold the tears back during that meeting. Not everyone else in the room followed suit.

“I wanted to send a message that Albia High School was going to be fine,” Hoskins said.

***

Albia being an hour and a half drive from Des Moines, it’s not easy for Hoskins to get to the state capital where most of the other 13 cancer survivors who are embarking on the hike to Mt. Everest next week workout as a group. Therefore, Hoskins has been training alone. When her school is empty, she pulls out the bleachers and runs the stairs in the gym she knows so well.

Hoskins has been on the administration for 14 years at Albia High School, including 11 of them as head principal. She has been married to her husband Steve for 36 years, is a mother of five (including her oldest son Matt, who will accompany his mother on her journey to Nepal) and has coached cross-country, basketball, softball and boys’ tennis. She admits to being anal, a list-maker and detail-oriented, but she is also kind and compassionate and champions the cause for the underdog. She was behind the inception of an alternative school and has attended every homecoming for the 34 years she’s been an educator except for one. Though she tried to.

She felt wobbly in the shower, but she still planned to speak at the ceremony. She felt faint in the football field press box, but she chalked it up to the fresh paint job. She snuck away to her office to gather herself, but her coworkers found her and convinced her to go home. The chemo treatment was too much.

“It just didn’t happen,” she said. “I was pretty devastated. It made me recognize I wasn’t going to have this list I would be able to check off. I wasn’t going to be in control.”

Hoskins managed to attend the dance the next evening, so the weekend wasn’t a complete loss.

***

“It’s hard to get anything over on Mrs. H,” said Hoskins, using the nickname her students gave her a long time ago.

So when she discovered that her entire family, community, staff and students had collectively kept a secret from her, she was floored.

“I was had,” she says now with a smirk and a shake of the head.

The execution of the plan began with a few phone calls to Hoskins while she rested at home during her lunch break on one of the many days she came to work during her illness. She thought it was out of the ordinary that her husband, secretary, and friend all called to check on her within the same hour, but she brushed it off as coincidental.

An early-afternoon board meeting was abruptly interruption informing Hoskins that there had been a brawl at her school. Fights rarely happened. And between two best friends!

The superintendant offered to drive her over to act as an escort in case the situation got out of control. Hoskins took him up on it. He parked behind the school, which Hoskins found odd. When she entered the school, her activities director asked if she could take a look at a banner setup for a winter sports awards assembly that was taking place that afternoon. Hoskins said she had a fight to deal with. Where were the two troublemakers?

Hoskins hurried into the gymnasium where the surprise culminated. The band fired up the fight song. The entire middle school and high school student body donned purple and green shirts which read “Team Hoskins: Faith, Community, Family, School.”

“I don’t know how they cooked this up without me knowing it,” Hoskins said of one of the most powerful afternoons of her life.

Her friends were there, her husband and children, extended family members. They were all introduced to the familiar Chicago Bulls’ theme song.

Even the Channel 5 news crew showed up. And, out of place, six beauticians. They were there to cut off students’ hair in honor of Mrs. H losing hers. Girls donated their lengths to Locks of Love. Boys shed all of it. Ironically, Hoskins hair only thinned and never fell out. But that wasn’t the point.

“Usually with school assemblies, there is not a unified sense of what you’re here for,” said senior Caleb Haselhun, who was a sophomore at the time. “But that was not the case. We knew what we were there for.”

Staff members spoke. The students put on a slideshow with their favorite photos. Then it came time for Mrs. H to give a speech. She took the microphone as everyone stood silently.

“We’re gonna kick ass!” the weak woman yelled powerfully.

The students erupted at the remark. They’d never had a principal who used a bad word before. They’d never had one with cancer either. But this was a tough time like none other in this tiny town, and everyone was adjusting. The high school would be fine. And together they would go on to beat cancer, one ass kick at a time.

---
Questions or comments on this story? Email the author at: brian.triplett@gmail.com

Easier Breathing

April 1, 2011

Brian Triplett

www.theworldtri.com will unfold stories of these unique individuals and their experiences as they embark on this once-in-a-lifetime journey.

STORY BY BRIAN TRIPLETT
DESIGN BY CHELSEA LISTER

Every year Stacey Hockaday takes on a new challenge. A marathon. A bike race with a 10,000-foot climb. Next week, it will be a hike to Mt. Everest Base Camp. They're the types of things you can’t just say, "Let’s wing it," and have success.

This idea to push her limits began when the toughest obstacle she’s faced to date ended up changing the way she saw the world. The biggest difference between this first challenge that inspired the annual test of courage and all the others – she didn’t ask for this one. Cancer invited itself in without knocking.

She may not have asked it to come over, but since it did, Hockaday let cancer teach her a thing or two before asking it to politely leave with chemo and radiation therapy.

“I wouldn’t wish this upon anybody,” Hockaday said. “But if I could go back and have a choice, I wouldn’t change it I don’t think.”

She doesn’t talk about cancer like an enemy. In fact, she speaks of it as if it was closer to a friend. A friend she knew for only a brief time in her life that was harshly honest with her, pushed her, taught her to appreciate mountains among purple skies and fat full moons and good conversation, and then left without leaving contact information.

One time cancer did return, six years after she thought it was gone for good. A mastectomy and six months of chemo were served at the final reunion.

She may have lost her hair and a breast, but those were the small prices to pay for the feeling that she can take on whatever she puts in front of her.

“The first time anything bad happens to a person, you think, ‘How am I going to get through this?’” Hockaday said. “Now you feel there is very little that you can’t survive, that you can’t find a way to get through and come out better on the other side. It’s never gonna be harder than just getting through that cancer journey. You really know you can accomplish anything you put your mind to.”

Last year Hockaday was the only female in a group of 11 cyclists who rode 308 miles across the entire state of Iowa. Yes, there is a famous annual event called RAGBRAI in which thousands of people ride across Iowa in a week. Hockaday did it in a day. Twenty-one long, nauseating, achy hours. Dr. Richard Deming, who is leading the cancer survivor group to Mt. Everest next week, and Bob Irving, a co-survivor also heading to Nepal, were among the team of 11.

Hockaday will explain that like cancer, these challenges aren’t overcome instantly. Time plus positive mindset equals the answer to getting through it.

“It’s not that you’re cured from cancer the next day. It’s the journey,” Hockaday said. “Then you get there and it’s like, alright, I got through that, and it gives you a confidence in yourself.”

Although once a year Hockaday likes to take on something that balances on the fine line between possible and impossible, cancer taught her to appreciate the small stuff. She also does something kind for a stranger as frequently as the opportunity presents itself.

A favorite Ralph Waldo Emerson quote hangs in her office, and she can recite most lines from memory:

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

Her story in short: Cancer has helped Stacey Hockaday succeed.

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Questions or comments on this story? Email the author at: brian.triplett@gmail.com

The Light of Lime

March 31, 2011

Brian Triplett

www.theworldtri.com will unfold stories of these unique individuals and their experiences as they embark on this once-in-a-lifetime journey.

STORY BY BRIAN TRIPLETT
DESIGN BY CHELSEA LISTER

Two thousand people were in attendance the night Justin Anderson took the stage as both his past and future selves. It would have been called the present at the time, and it didn’t last long. The final concert that Comrade Generator would ever play marked the only glimpse the general public would catch of this transformation between the two characters. When Anderson says, “I went from one person to another pretty much overnight,” this is the closest anyone who knows his story can come to putting a finger on that particular evening if it exists other than just as an expression.

The crowd went wild each time Anderson, the lead singer of the band, would point to his t-shirt. Why did they do that? Because his t-shirt had the words, “F--- Cancer” on it. Why did the shirt say that? Because the 26-year-old had recently learned that he had brain cancer, and well, he wanted it to get f---ed. How recently? So fresh off the news that he still had staple marks on the side of his skull from having a walnut-sized tumor removed from his brain just a few weeks prior. The neurosurgeon who performed the procedure was in the audience.

The foul language, the role as the center of attention, the all out rocking out - these were parts of the past self saying one last goodbye. The anaplastic astrocytoma that threatened his life and made him confront his mortality, the prayer circle with the main act of the show Sevendust backstage – these were hinting of the future.

That night Anderson entertained sweaty fans, sold CDs and signed autographs – including one upon request from Sevendust – all while the news that he had anywhere between three to five years to live based on the average outlook of his condition swam laps through his mind. For that one evening, he was everything and everyone he’s ever been at the same time.

After the concert concluded he packed his belongings. He was heading for Hope Lodge - a center in Iowa City for cancer patients undergoing intense treatment. The morph was complete. The sun was up which made it morning, meaning the overnight was over.

***

“Before cancer was on my radar, I was self centered, I was careless, reckless and I just really didn’t see a lot of the world outside myself,” Anderson said. “I was playin’ all these shows and the shows kept getting bigger and my head kept getting bigger along with that. I really didn’t have any direction or sense of purpose in life other than to rock ‘n’ roll, whatever that meant.

“Now, it’s crazy. I’m a Christian, I’m one of the youth leaders at church, I teach the bible to kids, I’m going to trek to Mount Everest, I’m married, I’m going to college. It’s nuts.”

Sure, the arm tattoos, three-step handshake and typical 20-something sense of relaxed fashion may not scream Bible Basher. But the new Anderson would rather talk about his beautiful wife, reconnecting with nature and his family on his recent hiking trip, and how we’d all be better off getting to know our creator rather than discussing sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.

One could play devil’s advocate and say, sure, ask Jesus to become your friend when you’re facing brain cancer. But the first time Anderson started attending church in his adult life – three weeks before the tumor was discovered.

“If he would have started going to church after he found out he would have thought it was for different reasons,” said his wife Alicia, who has been a devout Christian her entire life and had put the offer on the table for Justin to join her any time.

Anderson considered himself more of an atheist before, but he speaks of his not-so-distant past as he might as well be describing another person. When asked if he ever viewed religion in a negative light when his attendance of the services and the diagnoses of his disease basically coincided, his answer is “No way.” He’s thankful he began going when he did.

“That was very significant for me,” Anderson said, “Because that was my first understanding that God truly knows me because he knows that had I have started going to church after my diagnosis, my analytical mind would have deciphered that as you’re just feeling these emotions and you’re going to church because you think you’re going to die.”

***

Today he speaks of beating brain cancer as if it was a hangnail, a paper cut at worst. He says it with a smirk, but Justin Anderson believes with his entire mind, body and soul that he’s going to live to be 100. He says it so often that it’s the headline of a hometown newspaper article. But there was a time he thought the opposite.

“I was pretty pessimistic about it at first. But once I got down to those dark recesses of my mind and really contemplated death, I just flipped the switch and I’m optimistic now,” he says with a gentle laugh. “It happened in my darkest moments when I was sitting there facing death. I’m sitting there contemplating lying on the deathbed with my family around me, going through my life. That’s when I really started to be able to examine myself I think.”

Although he tries to push the dark times out of his mind, once in a while they’ll pop back in. Having just finished his final round of chemo just weeks ago, it’d be unlikely to imagine cancer having completely left his thoughts.

“You hear about somebody who died from brain cancer and think about it,” he said. “Now it’s not so much the thought of dying. It’s the thought of leaving behind what I have here. And that’s my wife and my family. That’s what scares me the most, but it’s not gonna happen.”

The first person Anderson met with brain cancer after his own diagnosis was a man at the Hope Lodge named Dalton. Through a few quick anecdotes it’s easy to tell that the man’s aphorisms could easily stick with you, as they have with Anderson after Dalton passed away last September. Anderson recalled a line from a letter his late friend left him which sums up the approach to optimism in another way.

“My favorite quote from the note was, ‘When life hands you lemons, take them back to the store, exchange them for limes and make margaritas.’” Anderson recited from memory. “So I think that’s kind of what’s happened here.”

***

Anderson’s sense of humor and all around take on life is contagious. And the way he is able to make light of his condition is at times startling.

After being reminded for a second time to send an email to aid in the telling of this story, Anderson replied:

“Dude!… Sorry I didn't get right back at ya. (Brain cancer, ya know...) :)”

“I think he’s always been a little bit of a clown and jokin’ around and telling stories,” said Justin’s father, Scott Anderson. “It’s almost like a defense mechanism maybe. And that’s great. Whatever it takes to help him get through this.”

Justin’s family values are at the core of his life today, but he admitted that he didn’t used to call his mom and sister nearly as much as he should’ve, and that he and his father didn’t speak much after his parents’ divorce. Faced with a life-threatening illness, priorities scrambled into the order in which he wishes they’d always been.

“After cancer it was like, ‘Wow, what would we do without each other?’” Justin said of his father, “My dad’s the greatest dad in the world.”

The father and son took a 12-hour drive into the heart of the Smoky Mountains this past December, marking the first time just the two of them had taken a trip together. Justin’s father recalled the amazement on his son’s face after they hiked for endless hours throughout the dense trees and came upon a clearing that allowed them to look out over the whole world.

“I think it overwhelmed him a bit,” Scott said.

Since the getaway, Anderson has taken up photography and an appreciation of nature thanks to his father. He will have his first gallery showing in Minneapolis throughout April and May, and the tagline of his website (www.justinclimbingmountains.com) now reads, “the diary of a tree-hugging, God fearing, cancer survivor.”

The beauty of the world and the ugliness of cancer have combined together to shift Anderson’s perspective on life.

“I think it’s opened his eyes a lot,” Scott Anderson said of his son’s experiences in the past year. “Not only to what’s out there, but things that are possible for him to do. Everybody around him, our friends or family watching this have all been effected by the way he’s handled it, the things he’s had to go through, the way he’s dealt with it day to day. I don’t think he ever had any idea that he could affect that many people. He’s grown into an amazing young guy.”

When Justin called his dad to inform him of the opportunity to go to Nepal with a group of 13 other cancer survivors this April, his dad’s advice: “Pack your bags.”

Even though Justin will live to be 100, his dad, sees no point in not seizing the day.

“We’re making sure that we get some things done that he wants to do,” Scott Anderson said. “I don’t want to say just in case, but we don’t know what tomorrow brings.”

***

With a hole in his brain, Anderson has some concerns for what effects the altitude might have on him, but he’s been doing his research.

“I’ve been finding out that there’s really no way to know for sure what’s gonna happen to me up there,” he said. “I need to keep myself well hydrated, get up there slowly and know my body and observe the symptoms. I can’t miss this man. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing. If I have brain swelling and I die up there, I died on Mount Everest man. That’s cool. How cool would my obituary be?”

His goals are to get closer with God through the bible – one of two items he’s definitely packing. The other is a travel guitar. Even though he’s not the rock star he was of the past, he still plays acoustic by himself and is taking request from all genres, not just Christian tunes.

“It’s about the music,” he said. “Jesus hung out with sinners.”

One can’t help but wonder after meeting the Justin Anderson of today what he was like before cancer. Thanks to this modern world, the Internet makes a lot possible. His band’s videos on YouTube feature the current tree-hugging, God fearing, cancer survivor screaming into the microphone and telling the audience, “So right now let’s show these guys how Clear Lake Iowa knows how to party!” as the crowd erupts and music blares.

After witnessing the contrast of two worlds, you then ponder what would be stranger: To know the Anderson of old and see the man he is today or meet him now and discover his past? To live in light and experience dark for the first time or to be enveloped in black and suddenly see white? Perhaps that’s too extreme. There’s got to be some crossover of both worlds that still remains.

When asked of the meaning behind the journey to Nepal, Anderson ponders for a few seconds, searching for all the right words.

“I kicked cancer’s ass, I can kick Everest’s ass.”

So maybe he’s still got a little rock star in him.

---

Questions or comments on this story? Email the author at: brian.triplett@gmail.com

There’s No One Else Above You

March 29, 2011

Brian Triplett

www.theworldtri.com will unfold stories of these unique individuals and their experiences as they embark on this once-in-a-lifetime journey.

STORY BY BRIAN TRIPLETT
DESIGN BY CHELSEA LISTER

Having just pulled an immaculate batch of chocolate chip cookies from the oven, Karen Parman stands in her kitchen and points to memories that seem to span nearly every feeling a person can experience. Uncontrollable laughter to unconditional love. Helplessness to hopefulness. Sadness to serenity. Devastation to magic. Even though it’s been 11 years since she conquered cancer, she recalls them with an eloquent grace that makes it feel as though they happened yesterday.

There’s the patch of ground where she fell to her knees and sobbed when the phone call came. Behind that door is the bathtub she washed dishes in for six weeks while caught in the middle of a remodeling project and radiation therapy. That’s the staircase on which her daughters, 6 and 8 at the time, painted her bald head when her hair finished falling out from chemo treatment.

“I had sideburns and all,” Parman recalls, looking as if she might smile, cry or anything in between. “They were very intent on the job they were doing,”

Her girls have since grown into beautiful teenagers and her hair into a charming gray she prefers to keep short for simplicity’s sake. Enough time has passed for Parman to go on living her life without the “C” word dominating her mind. But a unique opportunity to travel to Nepal next week to hike to Mount Everest Base Camp with a group of 13 other cancer survivors has given her a chance to revisit the effects that the disease has had on her life.

“Because I do not live my life in fear of cancer anymore, I don’t really give it a lot of thought,” Parman said. “But it is really good to focus again on all of the many, many blessings that are so apparent and that you just really realize when you’re going through that. You take more time to spend with people. You take time to tell people what they mean to you. You just do those things that in the normal, everyday activity get pushed aside.”

As her dogs bark, her horses neigh and the sunshine spreads over the Parmans’ small acreage, the 49-year-old breast cancer survivor launches into a pair of stories that prove life isn’t about fulfilling expectations, but rather about moments that you never quite see coming. One fills her eyes with tears. The other fills the kitchen with roaring laughter.

***

Karen Parman describes her husband as quiet, even stoic in a sense. Matt Parman describes himself as not-too-spontaneous. So as Karen sat on the couch during her second round of chemotherapy with vomit on her breath, rubbing her bald scalp and struggling to find joy in the Saturday morning cartoons like her children were doing, she was caught off guard when Van Morrison drowned out the animated conversation.

“Have I told you lately that I love you?” the song began as Matt walked into the living room while his wife and daughters’ heads slowly swiveled.

He set down Karen’s coffee, pulled her to her feet, took her fragile hand in his and started waltzing her all around the house. He kissed her hairless head, singing along to the lyrics as if they were his own words.

“I can remember at that moment thinking I’m never going to forget this, ever, because it was such a testimony of how much he loved me,” Karen says of the memory as her voice cracks. “But also because the girls saw it. The girls saw their dad doing that and showing their mom this love when I looked terrible. And I’m sure I had acted terrible that day because I felt terrible.”

Because he doesn’t dance very often, Matt says he remembers the moment just as clearly. “I know she felt helpless at times, but I think the spouse feels even more helpless,” he said. “You wanna help but you really know you can’t as far as making it go away.”

Based on the emotion Karen conveys when retelling the tale, the act was anything but helpless, and her pain disappeared for much longer than a song.

***

Shortly after Van Morrison’s voice faded, a letter came in the mail inviting Karen to her 20th high school reunion in Indiana. Even though she was known as the girl with a huge head of wild hair back then and she would be bald upon attendance having just finished her fourth and final round of chemo, she was going. Nothing a wig couldn’t fix, she thought. Little did she know as she and her husband headed east from Iowa what a story that wig would tell.

She laughed, she danced, she apologized for ever being mean to anyone and told each of her classmates why she admired them in high school. She completely ignored her husband, until the end of the night anyway.

Even though Karen didn’t want the evening to end, she couldn’t wait to get to the car to take off her itchy wig. Sitting in the passenger seat with her bare feet on the dashboard and scratching her bare head, she looked over at the husband she hadn’t spoken to all night.

“Wanna go parking?” he suggested.

“I’m thinking if my husband of sixteen years finds me remotely attractive at this point in time, you bet I wanna go parking,” Karen recalls. “Plus, it’s your high school reunion. Isn’t that what you should be doing?”

They drove past her parents’ house down a long lane leading to the woods. In high school she would’ve climbed over the back seat, she says, but not at 38. She got out of one door and back in another, oblivious of the wig which fell from her lap during the quick switch.

“Long story short, the next morning we say goodbye to my parents, we get in the car to leave and I go, ‘Where’s my wig?’” she tells as the laughter begins. “So I go back in the house and I’m looking everywhere. My mom, who was seventy at the time was like, ‘Well where is it? I don’t understand it. Where did you leave it?’ All of a sudden, I knew exactly where my wig was.”

She tried to tell her mother not to worry about it, but like a dog with a bone, she wouldn’t let it go.

“It’s in the woods,” Karen whispered.

“Oh, you two are terrible!” her mother blurted back.

Everyone in the room laughed hysterically as they still do to this day every time the story gets told.

Karen went searching. It was easy to spot in the daylight. She described it looking like a dead, wet rabbit in the middle of the lane.

“So that’s my wig story,” she says ten years later with a proud smile.

There’s nothing bigger than the little things.

***

Because of a .9-cm. tumor miraculously discovered by her nurse practitioner and the rounds of hell that ensued, Karen Parman has these stories to tell. The anecdotes don’t necessarily make it worth it, but the change in ideology might.

“She takes a lot more time to smell the roses now," Matt Parman said. "Whether or not you want to learn these lessons, cancer teaches them to you."

Karen calls her husband “her compass” and he’s done a lot more than dance and go parking to help his wife through tough times. She remembers her initial “pity party” in which she told Matt he didn’t understand that she had a disease that she would probably die of and would always worry about coming back.

“And he said, ‘And I could step off a curb tomorrow and get hit by a bus. What is your point? You have a life to live,’” Karen recounts. “And you know what, he was so right. And so that’s what we did.”

Traveling to Nepal and hiking toward Mt. Everest is not something Parman thought she would ever do, nor is it anywhere within her comfort zone. But next week she’ll be there, challenging herself, making new friends, creating new memories, and she is confident the journey will lead her to something she can’t even predict.

“I just think all of this is the process of God showing me what it is that I need to be doing with the rest of my life,” she says. “I need to go because what I need to see is the bigger picture of this world.”

***

The cookies have cooled after many stories and lessons have been shared in the Parmans’ kitchen. It becomes clear that these memories are born as small moments of the past and eventually grow into the most important particles that make up life without us really noticing when that transformation specifically occurs. More moments are soon to be made, especially for someone like Karen Parman who seems to seize her every minute, and those will turn magically into the memories of the future.

The phone rings. Karen answers. Her daughter asks if her mom has read her text. Karen hints that she hasn’t. She tells her child she loves her, hangs up and checks the message.

The mother of a friend has been in an accident. She is dead.

Karen gasps as she covers her mouth. All the words she's spoken of living for the moment that day and decade are suddenly, sadly, shockingly validated.

---

Questions or comments on this story? Email the author at: brian.triplett@gmail.com

Blue Eyes Keep on Burnin’

March 25, 2011

Brian Triplett

www.theworldtri.com will unfold stories of these unique individuals and their experiences as they embark on this once-in-a-lifetime journey.

STORY BY BRIAN TRIPLETT

DESIGN BY CHELSEA LISTER

Sometimes tears drip from Kathy Wennihan’s eyes when she’s crying. Sometimes they fall when she’s not.

The tear duct in her right eye malfunctions due to tumors caused by neurofibromatosis, and with no feeling in her cheek, she is often oblivious to the clear liquid that occasionally leaks from her face. When coworkers will hand her a tissue, she will have to explain that she is not crying.

While reading a bracelet on her wrist that tells of “What Cancer Cannot Do” at a crowded sandwich shop in the heart of Des Moines, one drops and deflects off the table. It seems a fitting time to weep given Wennihan’s battle with sarcoma.

But, “This was not a tear,” she explains. “It just waters.”

There are the real tears though. The kind that seem to drain from the deepest, darkest depths of the mind and body. The kind that makes the throat tight, puts the stomach in knots. And once you learn what Kathy Wennihan has been through, you will understand why that kind of tear also falls.

***

Three thin sheets of paper in Wennihan’s purse tell thick tales. One represents a story of progress. Another of loss. The third of a journey soon to begin.

The progress is tangible. The progress is mental. The progress is power.

As Wennihan holds up a weathered photo of her face from before plastic surgery, it is difficult to recognize the person in the picture as the same one holding it.

Her mother began to notice deformities in her daughter Kathy from the age of two. Tumors formed all throughout her body. Some were surgically removed, some remained. At a certain point, Wennihan finally decided to put an end to the operations on her face. She just didn’t think they were helping.

Because the world can sometimes be a cruel place, especially in the form of cliquish schoolchildren, Wennihan was made fun of frequently. She didn’t have many friends. She could recall one from 5th to 7th grade, but said they lost touch because of busy schedules. She lived in a shell and begged her mother not to send her to the public high school.

“I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to go there!” she recalls pleading.

Thanks to support from her church, Wennihan was able to attend boarding school. It helped. There she made friends, including the one who would be at her side for support years later when Wennihan’s parents died together in 2004.

Scars cover the outside of Wennihan as well as the inside. Her face now, thanks to a plastic surgeon she went to in 2005, has lessened the stares. She keeps the photo of the way she used to look to remember.

“Plus,” she said. “I like it because it shows my blue eyes real well.”

***

The loss was confusing. The loss was so much at once. The loss has a theory.

As Wennihan pulls a photo from her purse of her parents on their 50th wedding anniversary, it’s evident how much she misses them seven years after their death.

She would visit her mom and dad every Sunday to help with laundry, tidy up, and usually cap the day off with a competitive but friendly game of Scrabble.

After failing to connect to them in a series of phone calls throughout a week in October 2004, Wennihan drove to her parents’ home and opened the garage with the control she kept to find their van still inside. But the door leading into the house was locked. It was never locked. She pounded but no answer. Smoky, her parents’ kitten, stared at her from inside the house as if he was saying, “Come in here please.” Wennihan peered into all the windows, yet with no further clues she remained unsure of the situation.

When the police officer arrived, he asked Wennihan to stay away from the back window as he pried the screen open. Her parents were discovered in the TV room, dead of carbon monoxide poisoning.

There had been a few things out of place the last Sunday she ever saw her parents alive. Her mother insisted she take pictures from the home that once hung in Kathy’s grandmother’s house. When Kathy said she’d get them another time, her mother insisted further.

And as she headed for the front door, her father said something that seemed to make no sense at the time but now tells a painful truth. “I guess this is the last time we’ll be seeing ya.”

Wennihan chalked the comment up to confusion of dates at the time since her parents were preparing to leave their house and relocate to a retirement home. But after the funeral she replayed the signs in her head, and an ugly understanding began to form in her mind.

“I think they planned it,” she said. “I don’t know why I think that, but I think they did.”

***

The tale that begins with cancer is laced with its share of sadness, but ultimately it's the happiest one.

She’s survived stares and cruelty, loneliness and loss. As of a few years ago, Wennihan could add a malignant tumor to that list.

Although it is rare for her condition to produce anything but benign masses, the unlikely news was dropped on her in 2003. This meant surgery and then radiation therapy when it resurfaced in 2007, which has led to partial loss of use of Wennihan’s left hand and could have cost her the arm altogether. They were scary times.

“The information I was reading was that I was gonna have a 40 percent chance of survival,” she recalled. “I thought I was gonna die.”

Wennihan fought it, beat it, and is alive today and then some. Surviving this cancer is what has led to the third item in her purse: a world map. A man named Dwayne, (she doesn’t know his last name) who attends her gym, surprised her with it after she told him she was going to Nepal in April as part of a cancer survivor group’s expedition to Mt. Everest. Dwayne joked to Kathy that she was “geographically challenged” since she often had her directions mixed up, so he thought the map might come in handy. Now she’s able to tell the folks that she attends to daily at Mercy Medical Center, where she works as a Patient Care Technician, exactly where she’s going next month.

As she unfolds the gift from her purse, a bright-yellow highlighted area becomes apparent. Nepal. Not anywhere near Iowa but just about the same size. She’s never left the country and has been on a plane trip just three times in her 51 years. Yet she is going there in a matter of days to hike with a group of 13 other cancer survivors throughout the majestic mountains of the Himalayas.

“This is where I’m goin’!” she yells out with a contagious smile while her finger covers Kathmandu. She’s fairly certain this will be the greatest journey of her life.

“It’s gotta be,” she says matter-of-factly, contemplating any competition and coming up with nothing to top it.

What she’s looking forward to most is, no big surprise, the connection with nature. But she also fantasizes of the opportunity to help lift up someone else in the group who falls down, and finds hope in the possibility that her story might inspire others – a survivor of cancer or any kind – to survive. There is life beyond cancer, she can say. There are mountains to be seen.

To offset the daydreams, Wennihan, who never had children and lives alone, has been having nightmares lately in which she breaks her hip en route to Everest and has to be helicoptered out.

But she eventually wakes. The journey is real. The journey is right around the corner. The journey will likely have tears on it. And having climbed nearly 18,000 feet into the sky, they will fall far from her face.

***

Wennihan could give off a feel-sorry-for-me vibe to the world and likely be forgiven for it. But that would be a waste of time and energy in her busy schedule. She jokes about forgetting how she can’t use her left hand during morning volleyball games with coworkers. She dances atop her stationary bike to Tina Turner’s rendition of a CCR tune in the front row of Wednesday night spin class in the YMCA. “Big wheel keep on turnin'. Proud Mary Keep on Burnin’!” she sings as she pedals with persistence to nowhere.

She speaks with adoration of her curious nephew and her three quirky cats, including Smoky who mysteriously escaped death by carbon monoxide poisoning. Unless you ask tough questions about tough times, really all you’d know about Kathy Wennihan is that she’s a sweet lady with a few scars. When you bring up the words loss and struggle, she doesn’t take sole ownership of those sad terms that relate so much to her.

“Everybody has problems in their lives,” Wennihan said. “Sometimes we think ours are really bad until you actually see somebody who’s got it worse off than you. Then you think, well, my situation isn’t all that bad. When I look at the earthquakes we had in Haiti and Japan and these thousands and thousands and thousands of people that are without power and then having to realize now their exposed to radiation, getting a flat tire is nothing. Cancer, I don’t know how to explain it. I had it, it’s gone, and life goes on.”

When asked if she ever wonders why she’s had to endure so much, a tear forms and falls from Kathy Wennihan’s right eye.

“Um,” she begins as the small splash hits the ground. “Yeah, I’ll say, ‘Why am I chosen to do this?’ There’s a reason somewhere. I just haven’t figured it out yet.”

She accepts a tissue.

“That was tears,” she clarifies, already smiling again. “That was tears.”

---

Questions or comments on this story? Email the author at: brian.triplett@gmail.com

Climbing Away From Cancer

March 25, 2011

Brian Triplett

On April 6, 2011, a team of 14 cancer survivors ranging from ages 27-64 will travel from the flat fields of Iowa to the tallest mountains on the planet -the Himalayas of Nepal- to trek to base camp of Mt. Everest. The group's three-week quest is an inception of The World Tri creator Charlie Wittmack, and is being organized and led by Dr. Richard Deming, Medical Director of Mercy Cancer Center in Des Moines.

www.theworldtri.com will unfold stories of these unique individuals and their experiences as they embark on this once-in-a-lifetime journey.

STORY BY BRIAN TRIPLETT

DESIGN BY CHELSEA LISTER

On an extra-cold January evening in rural Iowa, Gail Endres stood above a trashcan in the same cozy house he’s called home for 38 years, holding a shiny new Browning mid-layer jacket in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other.

“Do you really need a new coat?” his wife Carol questioned.

“Well, if I go to Nepal I will,” her husband casually responded without looking up as he snipped the price tag free, allowing it to take its place with the rest of the garbage.

This was a peculiar statement coming from a man who has never broken beyond the boundaries of the North American continent in his 64 years of life.

“What?” his wife reacted, dragging out the ‘uh’ sound to prove her perplexity.

This is how Gail Endres decided to tell his soul mate of 43 years that he would be fleeing the flat fields of Iowa to set eyes on the highest mountains on the planet in the Himalayas with a group of fellow cancer survivors that coming spring.

“I think he told me in that way because I’m not sure he quite believed it could be possible,” Carol Endres suggested.

Thanks to Dr. Richard Deming - the Medical Director of Mercy Cancer Center in Des Moines and the man who organized the adventure - a group of 14 cancer survivors including Endres are embarking on a fully funded, 18-day round-trip trek to the base camp of Mt. Everest in April.

“I’m hoping what derives from the trek is the distance from cancer, plus all the friendship and cultural advantages and new experiences you’re gonna have,” said Endres, who at 64 will be the oldest member of the group. “My wife told somebody just the other day, ‘I’ve never seen him so excited about anything in his life.’”

***

Endres was diagnosed with early–stage prostate cancer in 2002, and despite a successful prostatectomy, he had to endure seven and a half weeks of radiation therapy when the cancer recurred in the same area in 2006. He’s been cancer free ever since and was the first survivor to sign up for the Everest expedition.

Endres is in the best physical shape he’s been in for a while, attending all the weekly workouts hosted at the Healthy Living Center through the LiveStrong at the YMCA program, and discovering muscles with his trainer he didn’t know he had.

Even though he’s traveled throughout all 50 U.S. states, Gail Endres seems to be the epitome of an Iowan grandfather. Humble. Wise. Appreciative. Bald on top with a pair of glasses you couldn’t picture him without. “Deere” isn’t just a word to him. It’s a living.

The country roads change names a couple of times as you drive out to his home a 30-minute ride from Des Moines. His quiet living room currently looks like a display at an outdoor retailer, with hiking poles, gloves, hats, a sleeping bag and a new jacket arranged in orderly fashion on the freshly vacuumed carpet. He’s so prepared that even the clock on his living room wall had been moved ahead one hour even though daylight-saving time wasn’t for another two days.

Proudly showing off his first U.S. passport, issued in January of this year, Endres explains how it wasn’t easy to acquire. Since he was born in a rural home near Milo, Iowa, in 1946 as the youngest of 10 children, his parents didn’t bother to have an official birth certificate issued until much later in life – something he described as common in those days. So when it came time to order his first passport, Endres had to bring in four of his eight siblings currently living to the rescue to prove he was who he said he was by signing affidavits at a local bank. Once the paperwork went through, he forked over the extra cash to have his passport expedited. The key to Nepal was at his doorstep within three days.

***

Endres retired from John Deere Des Moines Works on his birthday last June after 44 years (and only two unexcused absences), and ever since signing up for this excursion he has spend many afternoons on YouTube doing his research. Sometimes for knowledge, sometimes for pure pleasure. Watching takeoff and landing videos of the flights cycling through Lukla airport, which is notorious for having one of the world’s shortest and steepest airstrips, become a bit of an addiction for him.

He watched from his home computer as a single-engine airplane did a cartwheel down the runway, and let out an ambiguous laugh while later describing this particular video. It’ll be Endres on that plane in two weeks, but the father of three, grandfather-of-seven seems incredibly calm given the adventure on the next page of his calendar. Perhaps cancer has helped him distinguish what’s worth getting worked up for from what isn’t.

Endres is one of the few cancer survivors in the group who will be accompanied by a family member. His 37-year-old son Jason, who is moving out of his Brooklyn residence at the beginning of April, will be joining him. His father has not sent him a link to the videos of the airplane ride to Lukla for one good reason. Jason does not like to fly.

“To me that’s exciting,” the older Endres said with a wide grin. “It’s exhilarating. But my son would rather take a beating than fly.”

Both Gail and Jason hinted at the fact their relationship hasn’t been one of too much depth since Jason moved away to New York a decade ago. But a pair of polar-opposite events has helped with strengthening their bond. When Gail was diagnosed with cancer in 2002, and especially when he put that chapter of his life behind him in 2006, his son Jason noticed some change.

“Until he went into the hospital, I don’t think we had really talked much about any emotional side of anything,” Jason Endres said. “That whole ordeal changed him a lot. He’s a lot more open to talking and he calls me a lot. I think honestly it’s made him a happier person afterwards.”

Ironically, thanks to that awful thing called cancer, Gail and Jason Endres will be hiking side-by-side throughout one of the most awe-inspiring places on earth next month. When asked about his decision to join his father on the journey in spite of his fear of flying, Jason Endres said he wasn’t sure that he’d be going if it weren’t the situation that it is.

“I feel like I’m going in some way in support of him. It’s exciting to see him show so much interest in another place and culture. He calls me all the time to talk to me about things he wants to do.”

When Jason was hospitalized for kidney problems while living in New York, his mother and sister traveled to be at his side, but his father remained working in Iowa at his son’s suggestion.

“I should’ve gone out there too and been out there too,” Gail Endres recalled. “He said, 'You don’t need to, there’s nothing you can do,' but I’ve always felt guilty. If something would’ve happened to him, then I would have really felt inadequate not having been out there as my parental duty. So this is a chance to make up for that. From my perspective, that’s the way I’m looking at it.”

***

Carol Endres will be waiting for updates from the family's Iowa home as her husband climbs further away from cancer and closer toward their son on figuratively and literally the other side of the world.

“Even though this is his chance of a lifetime, he had to have cancer which is awful, but he doesn’t have cancer now,” she said. “To be able to hike Mt. Everest is a dream come true for him.”

Does Carol Endres wish she could go with her husband?

“I’m very proud of him,” she said. “But I’m so thankful I don’t have to.”

---

Questions or comments on this story? Email the author at: brian.triplett@gmail.com

Becoming the (Pink) Yeti

March 16, 2011

Charlie

For the last month or so I’ve been living with a Sherpa family at 10,000-feet in the Himalaya and training for my upcoming ascent of Mount Everest. Sherpa’s are naturally athletic, genetically designed for these altitudes, and as far as I can tell they don’t need to “train” for anything. My best hope for success in their kingdom is to stand on stilts in a valley full of giants. I spend my days here trying to find my stilts (and sandwiches).

Lukla (the village where I’m living) is a great place to prepare for Everest because of its location. The village itself sits at an elevation of 9,314 ft. Surke is below Lukla at the bottom of the river valley at an elevation of 7,511 ft. The Kalo Himal range rises above the village, with a couple of easily accessible peaks stretching above 15,000 ft.

When I arrived, I would spend the day running up and down the trail from Lukla to Surke to Lukla. A return trip between the two villages nets 2,000 ft. of elevation gain (and loss) over five miles and would take me about an hour-and-a-half to complete. As my training continued, I worked my way up to completing this course five times in a day – netting a total of 10,000 feet of climbing with 25 miles of running and hiking.

As the weeks passed by, the temperature began to rise and the snow started to melt up high. On my first trips up the ridge the going was very difficult and I had to break trail through snow that was often up to my thighs. It made for slow going, but good training. Eventually I was able to connect the two routes into a single course.

The trip from Lukla to Surke to the ridge and back to Lukla allows you to climb (and descend) 10,000 ft. in roughly 18 miles. It also allows you to spend a couple of hours above 14,000 feet and to reach an ultimate elevation of 15,100 feet. The groups heading to Mera Peak take three to four days to complete this course, but with training it is possible to complete it in less than eight hours.

The people in Lukla initially reacted to all my running around with great amusement. “Look at the American,” I imagined them saying. “He’s always in such a hurry, but never seems to get where he’s going!” Over the last few weeks the laughing has slowly turned to cheers, and the people who live in the incredibly modest houses along my course now come out as I pass to offer me encouragement and tea.

Three days ago we celebrated the Nepali New Year during the Losar Festival. Pasang and his wife (my hosts here) invited me to attend the celebration as their guest. After the villagers finished their worship and prayed for blessings in the New Year we spent the afternoon sitting together drinking milk tea and chang. I was surprised to discover that everyone already knew who I was.

“Oh! Running, running, running! Incredible!” An old man said while shaking his head.

“Stronger than a Sherpa!” Another added.

“Like a pink Yeti!” Another shouted (noticing my sunburn), and the group roared with laughter.

Stronger than a Sherpa, I’ll never be. But the “Pink Yeti” is something I think I can grow into.

Happy Losar!

March 15, 2011

Charlie

Losar is the celebration of the Tibetan New Year and is the most important holiday of the year in Tibet (and in the Everest region of Nepal). The Tibetan calendar is composed of 12 lunar months and Losar begins on the first day of the first month. In Nepal, Losar is celebrated for an entire month, but the first three days are the most important and are marked with special ceremonies and meals.

This year, I celebrated Losar in the Nepali village of Lukla, which is located about 30 miles from Tibet. On the third day of Losar the entire village comes together to pray for health and prosperity in the New Year through a special puja ceremony.

The puja takes place on a hill high above the village of Lukla, where a special alter is erected in honor of Buddha.

The first people to arrive at the puja are the Buddhist monks and lamas who officiate the ceremony.

As the celebration continues, representatives of each house in the village bring a long bamboo pole dressed with prayer flags called a tartshing. The flags attached to the pole are in five colors (blue, white, red, green, and yellow) and represent the five elements (water, air, fire, food, and earth). Each flag in inscribed with special prayers and the people believe that when the flags blow in the wind that the prayers are being spoken.

A fire of juniper branches is made near the altar, which blankets the ceremony in smoke and incense.

Each family’s representative places their tartshing near the altar with the tartshings from the other families.

Some men come in groups with their relatives.

Some people bring gifts. This man is carrying milk tea in a ceremonial flask.

The women bake many special foods for the celebration, and bring tea, chaang (rice beer), and other drinks.

Some of the luckiest children get to tag along…

…while others sneak away from school in order to catch a glimpse of the festivities from a good hiding place.

During my stay in Lukla, I’ve been living with Lakpa Sherpa and his family. Lakpa carried the tartshing for his house.

Lakpa’s wife, Poonam, brought a tray of dates, nuts, chocolate and pastries.

After all the families had arrived, people take their seats and prepare for the festivities. The women sat together and wore ceremonial hats called tshering king op.