The first news that came with the bike was dying. Sean Patrick drove the steep ascent to Smuggler Mountain, Aspen, Colorado, in a cool, pre-autumn day in 1995. He had spent many summer afternoons, the bike through the forests of poplar trees, enjoying the late sunshine patchwork on the track. Normally, training hard and excited by their daily 15 - to 22 miles of rides, Patrick was shocked when she was so breathless that he had vomited, so that the bike was.
"E 'was radical, "he says." I could not get up. "In the beginning was that they had trained or were suffering from fatigue due to too expected. Confirmation of their ideas, beat Patrick doctor that slow down and get a hobby." If you "brake" no ", he said:" I can always a prescription for Valium. "
After weeks of travel of not being able to climb rocks or her favorite sport-Patrick returned to his doctor,that of blood, but found nothing obviously wrong. He told her not to worry. Not until 1997 that they finally realized that he had a rare form of cancer called mikropapillären serous ovarian cancer. After the discovery late, Patrick underwent seven operations and at one point in 2001, after flying for a flight to the hospital on life, said doctors who do not do justice to last six weeks.
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Patricklive, and says, for the most part it was because of their experiences in the mountains. He was strong from regular cycling and weight lifting, and she was mentally stable, after decades of climbing. The skills and leadership in desert places like the Rockies acquired their preparation for the biggest challenge of his life surviving that ordeal in the hospital six weeks.
While on his death bed in the intensive care unit, a doctor inserted a line of blood gas sample into his body, and it is badHell, she says. "I grabbed it and got angry, and then I returned to my body." She compares the feeling to actually be falling for a hike or if he was afraid at the side of a mountain, stuck on a cliff in a thunderstorm. "I would be scared and then angry, and that would act as a catalyst to move. I knew that if I continue to move in front of my illness that I did not have it done. "
From his extraordinary recovery six years ago, Patrickis rapidly moving forward. Not only to play uphill in the mountains, they lace on the Grand Teton after 22 hours of climbing through the snow storm in 2004 also decided, however, he killed his mission to raise awareness and money for the cancer that almost it. "My life's goal to prevent as many women as possible, from what I've experienced," he says.
In recent years he has helped create a PatrickOvarian cancer site for the Johns Hopkins Medical Institute, and regularly travels the country for interviews. Patrick is the coronation of non-profit foundation HERA (Health, Empowerment, Research, Advocacy), which was created in 2002. They bring together organized Climb for Life events across the country and Mexico, women and men to rock climb, do yoga, get Clock climbing presentations and movies, and most importantly, raise money andfor ovarian cancer.
Friend and climb to the volunteers of life, says Deanne and Patrick paw incredibly exciting climbing events for thousands of people. "Sean has led to ovarian cancer in women who are free, and the power of many of my health and our take on how to educate our loved ones and friends about these types of cancer."
Patrick adds: "The need for resistance is to force women to reach deep down, iffeel as if you can not go further. Lessons learned from climbing and take care of in the wild in implementing successful strategies to live in a day to day. "In fact, Patrick has never been a sport climbing is seen as empowering for women." Often, when I saw the women get to the top of a run in the gym, the transformation on their face is phenomenal, "he says.
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SeanPatrick grin greeted the climbers as a stream on the third floor room REI Denver in spring 2004. Running a hand through a shock of white hair, she says she is nervous when he did, but his voice is a public stable and dynamic, as has been argued about for ovarian cancer and HERA Climb for Life REI Road Tour ( now in its third year) from REI, Black Diamond, and Hera. Talk to the audience with the skill of those who have a vast knowledge ofdisease and politics surrounding it.
After his diagnosis was Patrick "research maven ', reading everything he could find on the subject and doctors running around the country. With their energetic and tenacious attitude, is the wall of the scientific jargon to understand their disease penetrated. What what they have learned their inspired to join the others.
Since its foundation, he says, the doctors of the Foundation research grants made available, provided that the seedScholarships for a number of small communities that have allowed them to immediate relief for patients with travel, hotel rooms and offer child care assistance while in treatment, are, and programs established to increase awareness in the United States.
Patrick also has thousands of women and men to believe in their work. Among the women are famous climber Kitty Calhoun and Salt Lake City, Utah, resident Hillary Silberman. Both women who worked with Patrick for a videoFondazione HERA, and ovarian cancer.
According to Silberman, so the video and volunteer for HERA changed their lives. Silberman's mother died in 2003 of ovarian cancer, and she says that she felt powerless in the face of his mother's illness. "My involvement with HERA has given me the tools to work for my mother's death and a lot with people who understand where I come from a plug for the connection."
With participation and willproactive, Silberman said, she has something positive for others made by them with the information. "I have something positive for me from the beginning that I had to do to protect myself and have been quick to think."
With cancer, the majority of female members of his family, Silberman is a high risk of contracting the disease, even if they do not have it. Your doctor trying to convince them not to worry,But Patrick and the climb for life events Silberman convinced of their own medical services they need to look for early diagnosis. "To give the feeling of strength, endurance and tenacity that climbing I generated when the experts told me to worry about."
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Like most of the diseases specific to women, says Patrick, ovarian cancer has usually been ignored in medicine byIndustry. Despite the fact that kills women of all ages more women than all other gynecologic cancers together, the doctors are ignorant of their symptoms and many people think the disease only affects the elderly. This explains Patrick, partial results of the medical industry's traditional focus on men and male-specific diseases.
For example, it took the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, that "even if coronary heart disease (CHD) causes more than 250,000The deaths in women each year, much of the research over the past 20 years, coronary artery disease or have excluded women, in whole or had only a limited number of women. "
Furthermore, doctors treat women differently than men in hospital. According to a study by the fall of 2001 in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics published, "reports the pain women taken as seriously as men and women are treated less aggressively than men for their pain." In addition, women were more "could have their pain reports as "emotional" and then discount "is not really '."
"I have more experience with this type of treatment was negative for male doctors and female," says Patrick. "It 's a mistake in medicine is taught as women complain men do not, so they appeal to men more seriously. To the best treatment, you need a doctor, male or female (no better than others to be moreempathic) you can see that as a person and not a statistical group. "
Although Patrick tries to diseases such as ovarian cancer medical and other women-specific, do you think it's more important to promote women's health checks of their own. Ovarian cancer is a silent killer, he says, "the symptoms of the disease, and E 'important that women are aware of what they are. Women who go to the doctor with gastrointestinalThe symptoms need to ensure that ovarian cancer is excluded. "
Going, Patrick believes that women are taught to be themselves for themselves. Not only do these events teach women confidence in themselves, but are also "places where we do our passion for climbing into a passion for the difference."
"I believe that success in climbing, no matter what you are at ,4-5-5 ,14-source translates to a level of success life strategy," says Patrick."I want women empowered by the mountain, take them back into everyday life, and when they are on when the medical community, I want to trust their intuition, despite the affirmation of the doctor that they have no problem. climbing and in life, trust yourself. "
For more information about ovarian cancer and the HERA Foundation, please visit the HERA Foundation [http://www.theherafoundation.org]. Climb for Life events are held regularly aroundof the country. The next event of 2007 will be held in Boulder, Colorado. Registration has begun.