A LESSON IN LIVING LIFE TO THE FULLEST & IF YOUR DOCTOR TOLD YOU THAT YOU HAVE M.S., WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
IF YOU'RE SOCCER MOM WENDY BOOKER, YOU START CLIMBING THE WORLD'S HIGHEST MOUNTAINS
Manchester, MA --"Mommy, are you going to die?" Those were the words that Wendy Booker's son uttered after she told her family that she was diagnosed with MS. It was June 1998 and Wendy Booker, at the age of 44, an interior decorator and basic 'soccer mom,' was a married mother of three boys. She'd been ignoring some balance problems and numbness in her arms and legs so, when she fell while setting up a store window at work, she finally went to her doctor. The diagnosis was not good: she discovered she had Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a progressive neurological disease. She was devastated, but only for a day.
The next day, Booker, a casual runner until then, started running regularly and seriously. Her doctors told her that strenuous exercise could worsen her symptoms, but "for her sanity" she started a regimen of promising new MS drugs, increased her mileage and eventually, in 2000, ran the Boston Marathon. "Not only did I not think about my illness while I was running, but I wanted to reassure my kids and my entire family as well as myself-that not only was I going to conquer mountains, both figuratively and literally, but also this illness." At that point, she had only just begun.
Next came the mountains. She'd heard about a team of mountain climbers with MS whose goal was to climb Mt. McKinley (Denali, Alaska), which is the highest mountain in North America at over 20,000 feet. With no climbing experience whatsoever, Booker trained for a year, lifting weights, attending Mountain Climbing School in New Hampshire and training in Colorado. In May 2002 the team set off. They did not get to the top due to bad weather near the summit; but in June 2004, with another team, Wendy Booker made it to the top. Since her first taste of mountaineering, she's been on a quest to scale the Seven Summits, the highest mountain on each continent. Despite symptoms from her illness, a recent divorce (her choice!) and still raising one of her sons who's in high school, she has climbed two of the seven mountainsshe has climbed four of the seven summits. The most recent being summit #3 - 18.841 ft., Mt. Elbrus in Russia and in January, summit #4 - 22,834ft., Mt. Aconcagua in Argentina.
"For me," says Booker, "this is about more than overcoming obstacles; it's about commitment and attitude; it's about fighting back against illness and adversity. I truly started to believe that, if I can climb mountains, I can fight MS. What I really want to do, however, is share that message: When you meet your 'mountain,' go around it." Or, in Wendy Booker's case, climb it.
PERSONAL: Age 52, recently divorced, mother of 3 boys, lives in Manchester, MA.
BOOKER'S DIAGNOSIS: Booker was diagnosed in June 1998 with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), after experiencing numbness in her legs for several months and eventually, falling down at work while designing a store window.
BOOKER'S MISSION: To raise awareness of Multiple Sclerosis; to inspire others by telling her story; to climb the highest mountains on each of the world's continents (The Seven Summits)
UPBRINGING/EDUCATION: Originally from Rye, New York. Attended Westminster College in Salt Lake City; graduated from Ohio University in 1976 with a major in Education and minor in Theatre and English.
PREVIOUS CAREER EXPERIENCE: Before her diagnosis, Booker was an interior designer with 5 other women, at the retail store, Timeless Interiors, in Beverly, MA.
INFO ABOUT MS: An autoimmune disease, MS is an inflammation of the nervous system. More than 400,000 Americans have it (with some estimates as high as a million). Currently, there's no cure for MS, but thankfully it's not fatal. Symptoms include an increasing loss of coordination, muscle weakness and numbness.
MOUNTAINS AND MARATHONS: After receiving her diagnosis, Booker, already a casual runner, became a more serious runner and soon after that, a mountain and ice climber. She is on a regimen of MS drugs and her MS is mostly in remission. On her quest to climb the world's Seven Summits, the mountains, marathons and ice conquered by Wendy include:
MOUNTAINS:
- January 2007: Completed Summit #4, Mt. Aconcagua (Argentina), 22, 834ft,. her 2nd attempt. (Had tried once in Jan. 2005 but had to turn back after 16,000 ft. because of worsening symptoms from her MS.)
- July 2006: Completed Summit #3, Mt. Elbrus (Russia), 18,481 ft.
- June 2005: Completed Summit #2, Mt. Kilimanjaro, (Africa), 19,340 ft.
- June 2004: Completed Summit #1, Mt.McKinley (Denali, Alaska, USA), 20,320 ft.
- Chicago Marathon: 2006
- Boston Marathon: 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2006
- New York Marathon: 2002 and 2003
- Marine Corps Marathon: 2004
TRAINING: Booker learned mountain and ice climbing at the International Mountain Climbing School in North Conway, NH, spending most of 2001 in the mountains of New Hampshire attending 'snow school': learning how to travel on a rope team, glacier travel, crevasse rescue as well as sleeping, living and surviving in the snow and adverse conditions. She climbed several 14,000-foot mountains in Colorado and spent 10 days in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State preparing to climb Mt. McKinley (Denali, Alaska). Every winter since 2002 has been spent ice climbing either in North Conway, NH, or in Chamonix, France.
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