First person to climb mount Kilimanjaro with AIDS / HIV

 First person to  climb mount Kilimanjaro with AIDS / HIV

In January 2003, I successfully summited Mount Kilimanjaro while living with AIDS.

At that time, I had been HIV-positive for 15 years and had AIDS for 10 years.

This climb may have been the first documented ascent of Kilimanjaro by a person living with AIDS.

Here’s a short video of the climb on YouTube:

🎥 link to video on YouTube:  https://youtu.be/Q1jPkj32zHA?si=WUbTJBJ-16dd95nM

Over 20 years later, the experience still reminds me how much strength and resilience people with HIV have — and how far we’ve come.

I’m only posting this now, because many people since have claimed to be the first.  

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One more year, one more adventure, celebrating 25 years of my becoming HIV+.

Nepal

One of the reasons I started to write again is to crystalize future plans.
About a year ago, a friend approached me about going to Nepal and doing the Annapurna Trek.   After visiting Nepal twice in my life, I had still considered it a magical place from my youth.   But I had no strong yearning to return, especially given the pollution and degradation that has happened in Kathmandu since my last visit.  I figured it would be too much of a disappointment.
But I thought about it, and it seems more tangible in my mind, especially the aspect of doing a 2-3 week Trek around the Annapurnas.   My friend eventually decided she couldn't do it, but the dream had already solidified in my own mind.     I've encouraged other friends to consider the possibility of going, and found my close friend, Liz, from San Francisco was game, especially when she found out that there would probably be internet access on parts of the trip  (which blows my mind in itself!).

Nepal 1983

She's turning 50 next April, and I will be turning 55.  It will be also the 25th "anniversary" of my HIV results.
It's probably still crazy for me to think of such an adventure.   I know all the drugs I will have to carry along with me, the huge package of Fuzeon with its vials, needles, and syringes for the twice daily injections.   Also the huge potential for water born illnesses and well as other diseases and injuries.   I think back to the article that Gus wrote on peak experiences, and unfortunately (or fortunately?), that is the things that keep me alive and embracing life.   I wish it was easier, that a Sunday afternoon stroll was enough to do that.    That I did not need to go to the edge, again and again.

The Next Steps

Snowshoeing on Mt. Hood 2012
(photo by Scott Withers)

I was called back to the doctors office yesterday for an emergency MRI.   My inflammatory markers were so high that I was warned of the possibility of having a blood clot on my lungs or embolism or other potentially fatal occurrence. 

I thought about driving my truck, but opted to ride my bike instead even though it was raining outside.   And the rain made it more poignant.  If I was to hear bad news from the doctor, (or even accept the risk of endangering myself further by riding my bike),  I still wanted to feel alive.   Feeling the rain against my face, drenching my clothes would still give me the sense of being and existing, that I was still here aware and alive.

A month ago my friend Scott and I headed up to do some snowshoeing in the Mt. Hood area.   It was nice as we headed up one a small mountain peak across of Mt. Hood.     It was fresh fallen snow, and ours were the first steps except rabbit and rodent tracks which occasionally crisscrossed the trail.    The wind was light, and the going easy, but I was inexplicably tired as we trudged up the mountain.   It was a tiredness given as much by the unchallenging nature of the trail as by anything else.    It was only when nearing the summit, and finally peaking out on the rocky crest that I felt alive again.   The wind would blast us with 50mph gust, with the snow sand blasting our face, sneaking through tiny opening in our clothing, numbing fingers.    But it was awakening and exilerating.    It wasn't the easiness of the earlier trail that gave meaning to me, but life on the edge.

A friend from Britain wrote an article about peak experiences, and those of blessed or cursed with the need to live through them.  He also asked me to share some of my experiences.  It's given me a lot to think about -- concerning the driving forces for me.

It's been a bit since I've written in this blog.  Maybe life had gotten too uneventful, or the mountains too easy.    But things have happened, and some of the health challenges I've faced this past winter has opened up new questions about my continued ability to do what I love.    Over the next week I hope to catch up, re-focus, and maybe decide on the next few steps.

After the past 7 years, and several failed attempts, managed to climb Mt. Hood again.

This time, achieving my dream of climbing it solo.

Luckily, I was helped by the weather, and great climbing conditions.

Good to be on the Summit again.

Finishing up a hectic week in San Francisco -- covering the big annual scientific and research conference. Always amazed by how much work is being done out there. No cure, but at least this year, you heard rumbles by some of the scientist about that now being the target.

We did over 50 interviews and panels. Again, I feel privileged to meet some of these top doctors and researchers.

Our blog and interviews from there:

http://www.ifarablog.org/

Some things to think about during the church service yesterday. (My choir sang, so I got to sit in the choir loft hearing much of the service twice.)
Before our choir went out, our choir director, Mark, had us hold hands as usual, and gave a prayer. (Well, as Unitarians pray). The thing he said that stuck with me was that when we sang, to sing with "Acuity".

I think that is a good model for life. Another way of saying to be present. The Now is all we have, and everything else is just an illusion. Too often we miss this moment because we are living in this illusion. And we miss the people in our lives, because we are never really "with" them. I remember something that Mark had said in choir practice last week, that the greatest gift we can give to someone is our presence.

The other thing that got me thinking was during the minister's sermon. Why should we live as if our paradoxes always need a resolution? Trying to force solutions onto our lives, into the mystery of our being; it only forces situations and people into circumstances where they do not belong. I've often argued against fundamentalism for that reason. That compelling need that some people have to see things in black and white, the dogma of their truth, the inability to live in the in-between, in that mystery of the unknown.

"Morning Poem"

Every morning the world is created.

Under the orange sticks of the sun
the heaped ashes of the night turn into leaves again
and fasten themselves to the high branches –
and the ponds appear like black cloth
on which are painted islands
of summer lilies.

If it is your nature to be happy
you will swim away along
the soft trails for hours,
your imagination alighting everywhere.

And if your spirit carries within it
the thorn that is heavier than lead –
if it’s all you can do to keep on trudging –
there is still somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth is exactly what it wanted –

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered lavishly every morning,
whether or not you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not you have ever dared to pray.

-Mary Oliver




and....
to end this church inspired blog, we're singing this song by Holly Near, the words, and emotion of which touch me deeply:

On a rainy Oregon morning,

I go back to the video I did last spring:

AIDS and depression -- how we all deal with it.

Last night, I saw the movie, "The Road" about a post apocalyptic world where a father and young son travel through a stark devastated world where leafless trees fall mindlessly on an ashen covered landscape. They were walking the road toward someplace better, but where? It all seemed so mindless, their fight for survival among savaged people ready to kill them for food. Most times, griping their gun with 2 bullets, either to kill someone else at the slightest suspicion, or to use the bullets to end their own misery. The seems pointlessness of it all, as they create stories of why to keep on to keep traveling down that road, toward some goal. Where? All the while trying to sustain a belief to justify their existence. That somehow, they were the good guys, who still had the virtue of the sustaining fire of humanity within.

Falling asleep last night, I could only think that the world in which they live was so much like the landscape in which I seem to exist all too often within my own mind. Treading the hopelessness of AIDS, trying to sustain the fire within.

I remember seeing a report a couple of weeks ago about the high incidence of depression among those with type-2 diabetes. The constant monitoring and shots.

I think of the twice daily shots I do for Fusion, along with all the other medications I take. Mostly I try to do it out of habit, without thinking about it. What's the point of working myself up over a situation I cannot change?

In summer, I use hiking and climbing as my anti-depressant. But....Winter in Oregon presents another hurdle. I guess that's when just creating a habit, and then going through the daily motions comes into play.

Putting one foot in front of the other, believing that there is some sustaining fire worth preserving.

Back from Ecuador a couple of days ago.

Good trip. Exploring Quito, going to the Amazon, and ended up for a few days staying in the hills/mountains around Laguna Quilotoa. All the time finding time to hike. Of course, the highlight of the trip was climbing Cotopaxi.

I've often wondered about my relationship with hiking and climbing and having AIDS. Especially when it involves tough hikes and climbs of endurance. People may ask why someone living with a life-challenging illness would risk their health further by taking on physically demanding endeavors.

I see it differently.

In order for me to climb a tough mountain, everything else in my life has to be in place. I can't just show up one day, and start putting one foot in front of the other. My life has to maintain a balance to get to that point. If I'm truly serious about being successful, I must be aware of and maintain my physical, mental, and spiritual health. Each day, I must be motivated to exercise, eat right, avoid undue stress, and maintain a openness and awareness of what is going on in my life that might disrupt the goal of obtaining a summit.

Sure the climb itself is tough, but I know to be successful for the climb, everything else must stay in balance for months beforehand. I can't take things for granted. To work for that summit, I need to make sure my whole life is lived in health.

In some of the classes on living with HIV that I teach, I like to tell people who are newly infected, especially if they are in their 20's or 30's, that if they "get it", and realize how important their health and life is, and start doing the things needed to stay healthy (eating right, exercise, disease and stress management), then by the time they turn 50, they will in many ways be healthier than the average 50 year old in this country.

Being infected for going on 25 years now, I've probably had a harder time than most. Only recently being able to maintain an undetectable viral load. During all that time, I kept climbing.

On the day I climbed Cotopaxi, probably 25 other people reached the summit. I was undoubtably the only person with AIDS standing on the top of the highest volcano in the world.

More surprisingly, I think I was the only person over 50 to reach the summit that day.

That did not happen by accident.

That is why I am alive today.

(Cotopaxi)

In Ecuador, doing the things I love most.

Hiking & Climbing.

Never knowing what my capabilities are, but I push it, maybe too much. Rage against the Disease.

Yesterday, getting up at 12am from the refuge on Cotopaxi, getting gear together: harness, iceaxe, crampons, etc., embarking on the journey again. Tough, but beautiful climb, which I had prepared for by doing a couple of hikes up to Rucu Pinchincha during the week. At 15,300 feet, I hoped the hikes were enough to help me acclimate to Cotopaxi.

Of course, always worried about he stress on my body. I end up taking an extra dose of my HIV meds at midnight, because I get so caught up in the climbing, that I can forget a dose.

And of course it was tough. I try to not make AIDS (or my age an excuse), but it does come into play.

Near the summit, I end up taking 10-15 steps, needing to stop, to fill my damaged lungs with air. If not, I'd end up coughing and gagging. Thank God, my 3 member rope team were patient enough. The climb took about 6 hours to the summit. Then we were there....

And I Never felt more alive.

It had been like dying, that sliding down the mountain pass. It has been like the death of someone, irrational, that sliding down the mountain pass and into the region of dread. It was like slipping into fever, or falling down that hole in sleep from which you wake yourself whimpering. We had crossed the mountains that day, and now we were in a strange place.

Annie Dillard -- 'Total Eclipse'

Sunday Morning trip to Powell's books, picking up a couple of travel books for my friend in Ecuador. Browsing through several sections for something to take for myself. Rumi? Gracia Marquz? Annie Dillard came into my mind, so I picked up a compilations of her work. The first paragraph struck me, and I settled on it.

Much like traveling. Going to an unknown time and place. The death of something, the birth of somethings new. Like my move to Portland Oregon over 14 years ago. Four days, driving across country with a few meager possessions in back of my truck. Some boxes of odds and ends, clothes, a few books. A dresser was about the only piece of furniture. During the drive I continued with my fevers which would start up in the afternoons, and increase to 101 or 102 by the time I'd find a cheap hotel for the night. It was irrational. It was the death of someone. It was in some ways going into the region of dread, knowing that I might be dead by the end of the year.

Looking back, I want to say I was totally at peace, that I welcomed and embraced everything that would come. That I had no sleepless nights. But it was tough. All I knew is that I did not want to live the few months I had left in South Carolina. And I did not want to die in the place where I was born, where I felt no longer safe. I was willing to risk going into the unknown, even the dread of it for the chance, the hope of something better.

How many times in history has that happened? Where people have traveled across continents, across oceans, in the hope of the unknown, knowing the risk, knowing the dread, but driven from the intolerable, to jump off the edge of a cliff, falling, falling, sliding, down, down. Hoping to at the least to come to rest, in a new strange place, the potential, the possibility. Of? The just maybe, maybe....

Sliding, I come to a halt, take a breath, and slowly, slowly, open my eyes....

Slowly pulling things together for my trip to Ecuador next week. My friend there has given me a list of things to bring, which I don't mind doing.

Yesterday, he informed me that his partner, who is HIV+ cannot get one of his HIV meds, because of a disruption in the supply chain. I've been going through some contacts here to try to locate the particular med. The best I can do so far is find someone who has some outdated bottles, or another dual combo pill that has the med in it along with another unneeded one.

In the process I've come head on into realizing the fragility of living with HIV in a third world country. Almost all the meds I'm on, the "latest and greatest", which have saved my life, aren't even available in most third world countries. I realize that if my friend in Ecuador should fail his current regimen, he probably as few options left. The meds I'm on will aren't available there -- and they probably won't be in the foreseeable future -- they are simply too expensive. (The ones I'm on probably run $75,000/year).

And my friend is one among many. Many millions, who are in the same boat.

It's like being in a row boat in a vast stormy sea, steadily rowing, hoping we make it, somewhere.

Cross Country Skiing on Mt. Hood

Getting cold, falling down, snot running down my upper lip, falling down again, sweaty from overdressing, getting cold again, falling down again, more snot, achey muscles.

All and all, I say it was a pretty great day.

Got back from a 2 week trip to the South. Spending time with family, and friends, and got out to the Great Smokies for a 3 day hike. Less than 20 miles, but it was nice being in the mountains, surrounded by the Fall Colors. A lot of people out, day hikers, and a few overnighters like me, but my favorite times are one the trail alone. (The whoop and hollar of all the day trippers up to Mt. Le Conte was a bit much). I'm entertaining the idea of sometime in the next few years of doing the 70 mile through the Smokies. Not sure if it would be to relive old memories, or to open myself up to the moment.


Also, did Enjoy my trip up Round Mountain, near Roan Mountain near the end of my stay. One of my favorite hikes in the Appalachians. The trail went on and on behind me, but I had to head down.



And ... back in Portland. Something about the Fall, and the inertia of the darkened days that makes even the smallest task seem insurmountable. AAAhhh, the power to just power through on days like this. Sometimes, I wish I had that bit of chemical in my brain that some people have, that puts them into a constant state of euphoria and drive. Just take an pill, prozac, etc. Turn on, open out. Would be kinda easy, wouldn't it.
But would I be any more alive? Would I be experiencing life any deeper?

Instead, I'm planning for my trip to Ecuador next month. But .... Is that my pill?

TO BE A SLAVE OF INTENSITY

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive.
Think ... and think ... while you are alive.
What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.

If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten -
this is fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you
will have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!

Kabir say this: When the Guest is being searched for, it is
the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

Kabir

Feeling the end of a quick and filled summer ...

I think the 9 day trip around Mt. Rainier would be the memory I most take away from it, even more than a trip half way around the World to Cape Town.

It isn't the physical journeys I take, but the mental ones that are the most memorable. The delving deep inside of who, and where, and why I am in this World. Breaking away to new places and cultures can often break me away from the staleness of the everyday, and awaken a new awareness, but I still must have time to live within and soak into that experience. Often the whirlwind of travel doesn't afford that. Something about the rhythmic plodding on trail, or glacier, or mountain, awakens a deep awareness of being that is can be lost in the blur of images of new experiences.

..... And being away from the electronic umbilical cord of modern life. To often, I find myself defining myself in terms of "the other". How my life plays upon someone else's stage. It is difficult to break far enough away, that I am able to stand alone, and say, "This is me".

Even when hiking, I will find myself in communion with another, discussing, arguing, loving, embracing. Only after several days of walking, plodding, climbing, descending, that do I begin to awaken into the moment of being. Apart, but connected to the eternal.

Robby and I took maybe our final hike on Mt. Hood for this year. It's one of my favorite trails, about 12-14 miles, up through forest, and then meadows, and finally the rocks hugging the side of the mountain.

Wonderland Trail

Mt. Rainier

Had an incredible 9 days on the Wonderland Trail. Would describe it, but I think the above video speaks for itself.


Also, before the Wonderland Trail, had a nice weekend in Bend, and climbing South Sister with my Doctor, Mark, her brother and wife, Marty, and of course, Robby:

Heading to Bend today for the weekend. Will be climbing South Sister again this year with my doc. Robby, my partner is coming, so that's an extra treat.
It's a long 5000 vertical foot slog to the summit. But the view north is worth is. You can see Middle Sister, North Sister, 3-fingered Jack, Jefferson, Hood, etc. I think you might be able to get a glimpse of Mt. Rainier way off there.

And there comes my next (questionable) adventure. One Monday, I meet up with Robin to take 9 days to backpack around the Mt Rainer. It's over 93 miles, and probably over 25,000 vertical feet. It's will be grueling, with no break days, and I wonder about my stamina, and the logistics.

My Health is good, except for some lingering "feverishness" after Africa. I took a couple of courses of antibiotics to get over a bad case of diarrhea, but think that is solved. I think one reason I do this to disprove to myself (and to the world) that I am not fragile. That I can push myself to the limit.
But I also know the reality of having AIDS, and it's complications. At least 2 pounds of my weight on the trek will be meds. My biggest concern is the fuzeon, which involves mixing, and twice daily injections, all in sanitary conditions that are less than optimal.
I haven't talked about my latest numbers in awhile. I'm still undetectable, after a minor blip last fall. I know the studies say that as long as I am adherent to my meds, that should remain so. I rarely miss a dose, maybe a small screwup every 3-4 months. But I do wonder what factors having diarrhea for a week plays. My CD4 count has slowly risen to about 475. Good, but my CD4 percentage is only 13% (pretty bad), which according to some docs, is borderline full-blown AIDS, and puts me at a much higher risk for opportunistic infections. I want to believe I can't live my life according to lab tests, but I can't ignore them either.

So here I cam heading off. Sometimes - 20 miles or so from the nearest road, and logistical problems of being halfway around a mountain if something should happen, and I should need to bail out.
My main goal is not to affect my health over the long term.
Planning, Endurance, and Faith.

After coming back from Cape Town, many impressions of the city and the country. A place of inequities, despair, but of unimaginable beauty and hope. It made me realize how a country can walk the chasm between possibility and ruin. It made me further appreciate the great role that Nelson Mandela has played in the country, and how he is one of the great leaders of the past 25 years.
The Sunday after returning, a choir at my church sung "Lamentations of Jeremiah". Many people around me were crying. I was crying too, perhaps from the raw earthiness of awareness from where I had just come: