Climbing Mountains With Multiple Sclerosis

Male: You're watching Everwell, Know More, Live Better. In an active outdoor town like Boulder, Calorado it seems as if everyone is in training for something. Wendy Booker is no exception. She’s an experienced marathon runner and mountain climber. But unlike most, she’s doing it all with multiple sclerosis, a condition that often involves weakness and pain. The first sign came when a sudden numbness in Booker’s left leg spread up to her ribs. Wendy Booker: It's really hard to receive the word or news that you have a chronic illness that you're going to live with the rest of your life. Male: After initially experiencing anger at her diagnosis, she resolved to fight back. Wendy Booker: I thought I'm going to pick something totally out of my realm of thinking. To see how far and how hard I can push back on my disease. Well, why not do the Boston marathon? I never had any aspirations of running marathon. I wasn’t even running two miles, let alone 26. but I thought here is the ultimate way I can see if I can do it. Male: It took a year of training but she completed the grueling race. Wendy Booker: Then my family and friends thought life would go back to what it was before the marathon—but no. Male: Looking for another challenge, Booker joined a group of mountain climbers. All like her, with MS. Their mission, climb Mount Denali. Wendy Booker: And I thought I was so arrogant. I thought I've run the Boston marathon, how hard can a mountain named Denali be? Male: She soon learned that Denali is another name for Alaska’s Mount McKinley, the highest peak in North America. Wendy Booker: That took me way back because then I knew that I was facing something that I was very ill-prepared for. Male: Preparing for Denali would be daunting for anyone but having MS meant Booker needed to work even harder. Female: Think about that full-foot plant there? She has numbness on her left side particularly her left foot. With mountain climbing, it's very important that we focus on her balance. So, we do a lot of balance training. Wendy Booker: Getting over heated for me is a huge issue because it will make my symptoms far more severe and cause a lot of muscle weakness. But that is something that I too have learned how to deal with while I climb. High Five! Female: High Five. Wendy Booker: Yey! Female: Awesome, good job! Male: After more than a year of rigorous training, the group set out to tackle the mountain. Bad weather prevented them form reaching the summit but for Booker, the experience was profound. Wendy Booker: I sat on that mountain and I started to realize what it was like to have MS. And McKinley came to represent more than a mountain to me. McKinley came to represent what life with MS is really like. We can’t always do what we want while we want. And conditions of the mandate, we try a little harder, take a little longer and dig a little deeper. Male: Booker resolved to try again, this time to reach not just the top of McKinley but all seven summits, the tallest peaks on each of the seven continents. It's a mission she is nearly completed. Wendy Booker: Calling from the top of Antarctica, first person with MS, first woman with MS, first person with MS to hit five of the seven. We’re on the top, we did it! Male: Because symptoms vary, not everyone with MS is capable of such feats of course. But Booker says her experience offers less since for everyone regardless of ability level. Wendy Booker: I realized while I'm on those mountains, I'm scared. It's difficult. I can’t breathe. I want to go home. This wasn’t the life I expected. But this perseverance, this idea that anybody with MS or any chronic illness or anybody can d whatever they want and that’s what those mountains really have come to represent.