Inspirational Stories

I live in Colorado but grew up in Massachusetts and am an elite rock climber. I've traveled worldwide to climb and was the 2015 collegiate national champion. In April of 2022, I was bouldering by myself and hit my shoulder on a rock behind me. Falls happen as frequently as a baseball player may swing a bat while climbing. This fall was nothing out of the ordinary, except my shoulder was bruised far worse than I would expect from how hard I hit it, growing to the size of my hand by the next day. I remember looking at it initially and thinking, "Geez, I hope that's not leukemia."

Over the next couple weeks, the bruising continued and worsened until, on May 17, I sought the advice of a friend who was in their physician's residency. I felt completely fine besides and had sent a V15 (an extremely difficult climb) in Utah just prior. On my friend's advice, I went to urgent care to have a Complete Blood Count (CBC) done on my way out of Denver, and I am planning to drive to Salt Lake City afterward. The CBC showed my platelets at 5. My friend was crying on the phone when I told her. From there, I drove myself across town to the University of Colorado Health (UCHealth), which seemed to shock the ONC nurses once I was admitted and received the actual acute myeloid leukemia (AML) diagnosis. When I called my Mom to tell her my Dad was on business in Connecticut and was already asleep, I told her to wait until the morning to call him as I thought it would be his last night to sleep soundly for a while.

At UCHealth, I received two rounds of chemo before achieving remission and receiving a bone marrow transplant (half my brother's donor cells and half umbilical cord blood shipped in from the EU) on August 4. In total, I spent 67 days in-patient. This was quite difficult for me as I went from hiking several miles over Talus and climbing and falling for hours every day to no longer being allowed to walk without an escort within arms reach and having a bed alarm as I was too much of a fall risk to allow to stand up without supervision.

Over the course of treatment, I lost twenty pounds, having started at 130 pounds, and when I was released at the end of August, I would struggle to walk up and down stairs or around the block. In October, my team cleared me to drive again. Pretty much immediately, I started taking myself to the gym six times a week (although they never cleared me, and I never asked if this was okay as I knew I would ignore them) to both regain any semblance of my previous life and to recognize who I saw in the mirror as myself. The early sessions in the gym were admittedly a bit of a struggle, and I would have to keep my head between my knees between lifts in order not to vomit, but it paid off, and I was able to start climbing again by Thanksgiving and had gained the weight back by Christmas. Unlike before I was diagnosed, I was no longer motivated by a desire to succeed, improve, or push myself but just to be able to climb with my friends again.

In February, I traveled to Texas to attempt the climb Esperanza. It is a notoriously difficult V14, the hardest climb in the state when it was established in 2001, and was one of the first I had completed back in 2017 and the first "hard" climb I had done easily. The climb was very important to me as it represented being able to climb at, or at least close to, my previous skill level and that I had physically recovered. After three days of effort (the same as the first time), on February 17, nine months exactly after being diagnosed, I sent Esperanza.

I would attribute my recovery to the support I received, both from my family, who were with me every step of the way, every day in the hospital and every follow-up afterward (planned or emergency), to the BMT nursing staff, and to the providers and oncologists at UCHealth. The oncologists at UCHealth have received grants from LLS, which have helped fund research for the treatment I received. Since my recovery, I've tried to give back to the organizations that helped me. I serve on the Board of the Small Choices Foundation, a local non-profit here in Colorado. Small Choices helps blood cancer patients and their families with resources ranging from in-patient gift packages to holiday support and peer connections. They helped me through a tough time. I'm also actively supporting LLS. I traveled back home to Boston to participate in the 2024 Big Climb. My family and I raised money and participated in Team Chen. We all finished the climb and were the #1 fundraising team in Boston. We hope to do a repeat performance in 2025.