From Sea Level to the Top of Pikes Peak - An Impossible Dream
- Brenda Smith
- 12 hours ago
- 9 min read
As the first week of November rolled around, it was time for my seventh trip back to Denver for a check-up on my progress after getting my re-engineered T cells. Honestly, every day I'm feeling better and discovering new things I can do that I thought I'd lost the ability to do forever. Since Monica and Wayne had driven home to Denver at the end of October, I asked another friend to accompany me on my flights.
We arrived early at the Portland airport on Monday, November 3rd, in case the lack of TSA staff because of the US government shutdown might cause delays. In fact, we processed through TSA with no issues, though one worker delighted in telling travellers in a loud voice he wasn't getting paid to be there. A female TSA agent screened me and my Zinger chair. I told her how I appreciated her being there to help keep us safe.
At Gate 3, we watched as the jet we'd board to fly to Denver arrived and offloaded its passengers. Our crew went down the ramp, and we gathered our things to prepare for boarding. Unexpectedly, our captain came back into the gate area. He announced that the entrance door of the plane wasn't functioning properly. Though it could close, it was making an extremely loud noise that wouldn't be tolerable for a four-hour flight. He would not accept custody of that jet.
I couldn't believe all the problems I'd had with nearly every flight I'd taken to Denver. This was the second time I'd had a plane with a door problem. He explained the three options he had: get someone to fix the door, cancel the flight or get United to give him a different plane. As we waited, the situation didn't look good. Many of the younger travelers used their cell phones to rebook themselves on a different flight. I called the travel agent, who had booked our flight. She advised me to get help from the agent at the gate.
A line had already formed when I took my place in it. It took nearly an hour just to get to the agent. I explained I needed to be in Denver for a 9 am medical appointment that I couldn't miss. He checked and found that the only other flight with two seats that I could take would depart the next day at 4:30 pm, connecting through Chicago. My luck with connecting flights had been terrible, and I certainly didn't want to get stranded in Chicago. If I rebooked, and they didn't cancel my current flight, I could lose the seats I held. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place!
The gate agent named Ali must have felt sorry for me because he didn't send me back to the end of the line but let me sit in my Zinger just off to the side of his desk, while he helped a few irate passengers. It just so happened that at Gate 2 there was a flight scheduled to depart to Chicago that day at 4:30 pm, so a bunch of people on our flight rebooked and moved over to that waiting area. Ali periodically checked in with the captain and kept watch on the available seats on the next day's Chicago flight.
At one point, the captain came out to tell us that the option of fixing the door had been ruled out, but he was continuing to find another plane to use. Finally, after over two hours, our captain appeared at the Gate 2 desk. He apologetically explained that United had cancelled the Chicago flight and that they would use the plane at Gate 2 to fly us to Denver! I thought there was going to be a riot right then and there. All the people on the Denver flight who had rebooked on the Chicago flight desperately attempted to reclaim their seats on the Denver flight. It was a madhouse! The captain had to get more fuel because the plane had only enough fuel to get to Chicago, and other logistics also needed to change.
Finally, three and a half hours late, Ali signalled for me to proceed down the ramp to board the jet at Gate 2, allowing me the extra time to get my Zinger chair checked at the gate and onto the plane. The flight from that point proceeded smoothly. We didn't get the meals we requested, but I was grateful to be seated on a plane on its way to Denver.
My favorite limo driver, Bereket, picked us up and drove us to the Aurora Hyatt Hotel. He pulled up to the hotel entrance at 11:30 pm. All the lights in the lobby and reception area were off. The place looked closed, and the door was locked. I begged Bereket not to leave until we could get into the hotel. We repeatedly rang the doorbell and finally a security guard appeared and let us in. He said someone should have been on duty, but there was no sign of a receptionist. He made some calls and then went in search of the missing worker.
After thirty minutes, he returned with a sleepy-looking man, who checked us in and gave us door cards. At midnight, I entered my room. I felt exhausted and didn't bother to unpack anything. I just climbed into bed.
My friend and I filled up on the breakfast buffet before Monica and Wayne picked us up for a day of sightseeing. It was 70 degrees in Aurora. I dressed in a sleeveless polo shirt and brought a chenille sweater with me. We headed south for the 100-mile drive to Colorado Springs and up to the top of Pikes Peak. I had wanted to go there since Monica first pointed it out to me in the distance from a window in the hospital's neurology department. The road to the top was open, so we paid the entrance fee and started the circuitous 19-mile drive featuring 156 turns with an elevation gain of 6,715 feet to the summit.
The scenic natural beauty of this mountain is jaw-dropping. As we drove higher, the view grew increasingly spectacular. I was in my element. Words can't do this grandeur justice.
Though I was wearing the warmest clothes I had, the freezing temperature and ferocious wind kept Monica and me inside the fascinating two-level interpretive center. We followed the Pikes Peak tradition of eating freshly made cinnamon and sugar donuts in their cafe. Wayne took my camera to shoot some pictures for me as he walked along the pathway at the top.
Before leaving Monica snapped a picture of me standing by the monument marker. I had gone from sea level to 14,115 feet in less than 24 hours. Yes, I got a headache. It's never wise to make such a high ascent without some acclimatization. But from living at high altitude in Bolivia for four years and from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, I knew my headache was temporary and would subside as soon as we dropped below 10,000 feet.
On the way down, we spotted a herd of mountain sheep. When they saw us stop at a turnout near them, they came trotting over to check us out. Seemed that they didn't have any fear of us.
Back down in Colorado Springs, we took a loop drive a few times through the Garden of the Gods, an amazing collection of eroded rocks in fabulous shapes. Then had dinner at Mission BBQ before heading back to the hotel.
I still can't believe I got to stand on top of Pikes Peak, a dream I thought would be impossible just a few months ago because of my SPS. My world is opening up again, and that just thrills me. Many thanks to Monica and Wayne for such a wonderful day!The next thing I want to see in Colorado are prairie dogs.
Thursday morning, I had medical appointments at 9 am with Dr. Piquet, PT Rob, (just Rob now that he's redeemed himself), and to have blood drawn. Dr. Piquet thought my leg muscles felt much looser, but two of my back muscles were still somewhat stiff. She and everyone else remain perplexed by my pink dotted legs. She agreed to let me stop taking the antiviral Acyclovir to see if that might make a difference, but the dots are still there.
Feeling much stronger than when I was anemic at my last visit in October, on my walking tests with Rob I improved my 25-foot walk speed by almost 20%. And for the first time, while doing the six-minute walk test in Denver, I completed it with no need to take a break. My distance improved significantly too. My progress pleased the entire medical team. Yay me!
That day, Sadie had 26 vials of blood to draw. The nurse, who had lots of experience with ports, tried to access mine. She could flush my port catheter with saline, but when she pulled back on the syringe, there was no blood flow. She used about twenty syringes of saline trying to get a flat clotted blood flap called a fibrin sheath to shift position and open up so blood could flow through the catheter. Beyond frustrated, she called a second nurse to assist. They had me do "port yoga," moving my body in various positions to encourage the port to produce blood. They finally got a trickle to flow, but it took 20 minutes to fill six vials, and then the blood stopped.
Had I been in the hospital building, they could have sent me to hematology to have them inject an anti-clotting drug called alteplase that would dissolve the fibrin sheath. But we were in a building across the campus, so they resorted to the tried-and-true vein puncture. I didn't realize that even from a vein they could only withdraw six or seven vials of blood before clots would obstruct the needle. When the needle in my right arm stopped working, I offered the veins on the back side of my left hand. Again, they got six vials of blood. They still had eight unfilled vials.
"Pick another vein. Let's get this done," I urged. Unfortunately, hospital protocol prohibited the nurses from poking me in more than three places. I assured them I didn't have a problem with their completing the blood draw using another vein. But after Sadie told them that the remaining 8 vials weren't essential, they complied with the hospital's rules. Sadie had Dr. Piquet write an order I could take to the oncology unit of the hospital back home in Belfast for the injection of alteplase to clear my port.
This appointment had taken much longer than the two hours I'd expected. I'd made plans to meet the owner of Paper Raven Books (PRB), the publishing services company I used for my two books. Morgan lives in Steamboat Springs and organized a meet-up with me and three other PRB authors in the area. We gathered at Create Kitchen for a delicious spread of appetizers and drinks. One author, who also loves to bake in his spare time, brought a still hot out of the oven loaf of sourdough fruit and nut bread to share.
We enjoyed meeting in person after seeing each other weekly on Zoom meetings. Though Morgan did set up her computer to log us all into the hour-long weekly marketing meeting with about 15 other authors. We talked about books, publishing and marketing promotions for the hour on Zoom and for about 3 hours for those of us in person. We even threw out some ideas of doing a live meet-up again in 2026.
Surprisingly, on Thursday, November 6th, our return flight to Maine departed on time and went without a hitch. It always feels good to get back home, though I need a few days of rest after traveling. I went to the hospital and got the alteplase to fix my port and got beautiful return blood flow. I scheduled to have my port checked here in Maine three days before I return to Denver in February to avoid any problems with drawing blood there.
I am so grateful for how this year has changed my life. I wrote a note of thanks to Dr. Piquet and my medical team. I also sent an email to Kyverna Therapuetics, the sponsor of the trial, thanking them for not just changing my life but especially to the "unseen" medical and office staff behind the scenes that are working to potentially change millions of lives of people with auto-immune diseases. And I'm so grateful to all of you who have taken this journey along with me, cheering me on and checking in with me when you haven't heard from me. I'm working my tail off to have a completely revised draft of this SPS story by the end of the year. I'd love to have the book ready for launch when Kyverna releases its results of this trial.
Books always make much appreciated gifts for family and friends who love to curl up with an inspirational book on these cold winter days. If you haven't yet gotten an ebook of Becoming Amazed: Discovering the World with Eyes Wide Open, starting today (12/3) and for the next two Wednesdays (12/10 and 12/17) you can download a free copy for yourself or as a gift. These dates likely will be the last time I'll be offering free copies of this ebook, so get yours now and tell all your friends to get their copy too. Click on this link.
Right now, just in time for the holidays my new audiobook Becoming Amazed: Discovering the World with Eyes Wide Open is available on Amazon, Audible and Applebooks. And if you've already downloaded an ebook version or if you use the link above, the cost of the audiobook on Amazon is just $5.60 (a great deal as a gift!) and you don't have to be an Audible member.
Lastly, thank you so much if you have read either of my books. But if you haven't found the time to leave a review of the book on Amazon or Goodreads, I would be ever so grateful if you'd share your honest opinion of the book so others might find these books worthwhile to read.
I hope you all enjoy your holiday celebrations. Until my next blog, warmest wishes!
Brenda
Nice to hear of your progress. Good soul. Better life. Remarkable journey. Dana via Bucksport