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The Daily Review (Hayward, CA)
Fund sponsors expedition involving 25 trekkers, each pledging to raise $8,000
for the disease's prevention
June 30, 2004
Kristin Bender, STAFF WRITER
The Daily Review (Hayward, CA)
Dorian Newton knows about beating the odds. She survived breast cancer and said
she came out a stronger, more resilient person. Next month she will attempt to
beat the odds a second time when she sets out to climb more than 14,000 feet to
the summit of Mount Shasta.
The odds are against her.
Only three in 10 people who undertake the journey make it to the snow-topped
peak. Exhaustion, the threat of avalanches, altitude sickness, finger-numbing
temperatures and a new-found fear of heights will be stacked against her.
But pulling for her every step of the way will be a team of 24 other climbers,
including a handful of fellow breast cancer survivors from Berkeley and Oakland.
They are part of the Breast Cancer Fund's fifth annual Climb Against the Odds
mountain expedition.
"I feel as though I've been preparing for this, maybe not physically, but
mentally, ever since the diagnosis," Newton said. "I feel very strongly about
wanting to do my best. ... Whether that means I will actually make it to the top
or not, I don't know."
Newton was diagnosed with breast cancer seven years ago, but the disease was not
new to her. Her older sister, Stephanie, was already battling the disease when
Newton got her own dose of bad news.
"My 40th birthday was in the oncologist's office," she said. "I was very
frightened because my sister was dying [of breast cancer] at that point." Two
other close relatives have battled prostate cancer.
"I already knew more about it then I wanted to, and I was also afraid to tell my
kids," she said.
Newton has undergone surgery, chemotherapy and still takes pills daily to combat
a relapse. She turned toward athletic endeavors to do "something positive" with
her body, which had undergone a great deal of distress, she said.
She walked 60 miles in three days for a breast cancer fund-raiser and then
turned to road biking and running. She completed a half-marathon and began
considering running a 26.2 mile-marathon when the Shasta trek caught her eye.
"I'm not a very athletic person," said Newton, 47, of Piedmont. "I only started
trail running and the hiking in the last couple of years."
Newton and her group will be on the mountain July 7-9 and expect to reach the
summit July 8. They've been working toward the goal for the better part of a
year, hiking, working out, attending snow school, learning how to use trekking
poles and climb with up to 40 pounds on their backs.
They learned to work as a team with the harness, to communicate in the dark and
usea technique called "self-arrest," in which climbers jam their axes into the
snow to stop an uncontrolled fall.
"It's a tough mountain," said Erin Malec, a spokeswoman for the Breast Cancer
Fund. "It's 14,000 feet. It's hours of climbing. They wake up at 2 a.m. and
start the day. You really have to train to make this climb."
Along with training, each climber has pledged to raise $8,000, which goes to
breast cancer prevention. The Breast Cancer Fund is the only national breast
cancer organization focusing solely on prevention.
"There is a lot of attention and money going toward finding a cure and access to
care and treatment, which are all very important, but we come from a place where
we are concerned that breast cancer rates have tripled in the last 50 years,"
Malec said.
American women have a one in seven chance of contracting breast cancer in their
lifetimes.
compared to women in the 1940s who stood a 1 in 22 chance of facing the disease
during a lifetime, statistics show.
"Our mission is to identify and eliminate environmental and other preventable
causes of the disease," Malec said.
Of 85,000 synthetic chemicals registered in the United States, fewer than 10
percent have been tested for their effects on health, the Breast Cancer Fund
says.
"We are talking about everything from pesticides to chemicals linked to cancer
that could be found in household cleaning products and personal care products,"
Malec said.
Stuart Kandell is climbing Mt. Shasta -- for a third time -- in memory of his
wife, Katie Allen, who died 18 months ago after battling breast cancer for 14
years.
He's also doing it for another reason.
"I'm doing it because I want to raise more awareness that we need to control the
environment," said the 55-year-old Montclair man. "In studying the environmental
causes of breast cancer, they are really looking at toxins in the environment. I
believe they are what contributes to breast cancer more than anything."
Source :
http://www.breastcancerfund.org/site/apps/nl/content.asp?c=kwKXLdPaE&b=86071&ct=160095