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Keri Shaw

We're All Fighting Time

By 29029 Everesting

March 24^th, 2023

I was a runner for large parts of my life. Fitness was always important to me, and as an athlete, I always felt in tune with my body.

Starting sometime around 5 years ago, I started to notice something a little off on my runs.

Recovery wasn’t coming easy. My left side felt heavy. I was falling more often. Tripping. Sometimes I’d have trouble lifting my legs up, almost like I was moving through water.

That started a long winding journey with doctors to try to figure out what was wrong with me.

Being an athletic person, my body didn’t present symptoms in the same way it would have had I lived a sedentary life. I went through numerous doctor appointments without answers.

I lost track of how many doctor's office waiting rooms I'd seen.

Finally, In February of 2021, I was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson’s.

To say it was unexpected was an understatement.

It was like a punch in the gut.

I was devastated.

Demoralized.

Absolutely crushed.

When you have Parkinson’s, you are completely in the dark about how things will happen. There’s no way to know how quickly things may go. The only thing you know for sure is that you’re at your finest at any given point. From there, things will only regress.

It’s almost like a dripping tap from a finite tank of water. Each drop is something lost - something you won’t get back.

From the beginning of being diagnosed, I started telling myself all kinds of terrible stories.

Even for the most mentally resilient of us, it can be easy to doubt yourself. When you have an incurable progressive brain disease, it becomes even easier to let those doubts creep in.

The stories I was telling myself were ruthless.

You’re going to be nothing. You’ll lose control of your body. You’ll lose control of your mind. You’ll be nothing.

I had written myself off.

Negative thoughts dominated my mind.

As a single mother, I felt absolutely terrified about what my diagnosis meant for my kids.

How would I provide for them?

My runway to retirement instantly shortened, and the thought of my long-term care costs crippled me.

Many nights, I’d wake up in absolute terror, dry heaving over the stress of worrying about my kids having to watch me lose myself.

One of those nights, while laying on the bathroom floor in utter despair - one of my darkest moments - I realized I had a choice to make: I had to choose how I wanted to show up for my life as it now was.

I had two choices.

I could let the diagnosis take me down, or I could learn everything about it and choose to keep showing up, giving it my all.

I chose the latter.

Exercise is the only proven treatment to slow the progression of Parkinson’s, so that became an integral part of my strategy to move forward.

I had heard of 29029 prior to being diagnosed, and with my athletic background, it had always seemed intriguing. Now, with a Parkinson’s diagnosis hanging over me, it truly felt like now or never.

So only a few short months after being diagnosed, I signed up for 29029 Whistler.

If I’m going to do 29029, I better do it soon, because if I don't now, I may never be able to.

I signed up, not knowing what condition my body would be in when the time came to climb, but at least I’d have something to keep myself moving forward until then.

29029 was something to look forward to.

I had no expectations as I stepped onto the mountain in Whistler. I didn’t know whether I’d get 1 ascent, 3 ascents, or all of them.

All that mattered is that I was there, ready to give it a try.

My first ascent was a game of mental math.

I had calculated the numbers - I knew how fast each ascent would have to be if I wanted to complete all 8 within 36 hours. I also knew how long people were expecting the first lap to take. It seemed like it would be 2-2.5 hours, so I prepared for a long hike up.

Instead of a long ascent, it flew by. I felt great! It had only taken me 1:25 to complete!

At the top of Whistler, I realized I still had it.

My body was still listening to me.

It was a dramatic emotional and mental reset.

With newfound energy, I crushed the second and third climbs.

I felt a new clarity, a clarity that was helping propel me up the slopes.

Of course, it wasn’t all easy after that point. The fourth and fifth ascents started to feel more like a grind, but I leaned into the struggle.

On my sixth, I realized that I’d mostly just been eating M&Ms and PB&J sandwiches for the entire day, so I stopped for a real meal before retiring for the night.

I started my seventh ascent early so that I’d catch the sunrise.

There was no other way to describe the views from the summit that morning than magical. The clouds had inverted, spread in a pillowy blanket below the surrounding peaks.

It was like a metaphor for my journey after being diagnosed. Things had been dark for a while, but I had pushed through and found light on the other side.

On the mountain, I had climbed through the clouds - through that darkness - to be rewarded with the view from the summit.

It was spectacular!

Finally, summit number 8 came.

Everest.

Holy shit, I just finished something I never thought I could do.

Pulling on that Red Hat capped off all those feelings that came rushing in after I finished my first ascent the previous day.

My mind can make up stories, but I can keep going.

I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I can take things one day at a time.

I can still seize the moment.

It might get messy, and I don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like, but I’m going to see my path through to the very end.

Parkinson’s isn’t going to stop me from living my life.

Before 29029, my focus had been making it long enough to get my kids through college. My goal was to make it 8 years, and then I could die. That’s really what I had been telling myself.

After climbing Whistler, a switch had flipped. There was more to live for - not just the next 8 years. I started sketching out a 15-year plan.

After conquering the mountain in Whistler, I felt confident enough to look into the future again.

To put it another way, I realized I was worth it. I wasn’t just some piece of shit with a crappy disease. There was more to me. There was more to my life.

Everybody has something. Everybody has a disease, or an accident, or trauma, or even just plain old aging that they’re dealing with. 29029 helped me realize that.