Local surgeon climbs Mt. Kilimanjaro

This column was published in August 2011 in Bay Area News Group newspapers.

While many of us stayed around town during the dog days of summer, local resident Alexandra Burgar, who goes by Sandi, spent her vacation climbing the tallest mountain on the African continent: Mount Kilimanjaro.

Burgar, who is 39 and practices medicine in Pleasanton as an orthopedic hand and arm surgeon, was away ten days, including seven days of trekking.

“The first day of climbing was through a muddy rainforest,” she said, noting that Kilimanjaro’s geography includes climate zones ranging from rain forest to alpine desert to the snow cap.

Hiking with guides and porters, Burgar and four fellow trekkers (three men from California and a woman from Texas) followed what is known as the Machame Route, or the Whiskey Route, one of six routes to the summit.

On the second day of the climb, the team encountered cold rain as they climbed to 12,500 feet. They also happened upon other groups, including three youngsters from Holland. “Their English was better than mine,” Burgar joked.

Day three took the travelers through a region of cold and wet fog, across shale and rocks. “The vegetation looked like it came from a movie set for Star Trek,” Burgar said.

On the fourth day of climbing, Burgar caught her first glimpse of the summit as the fog cleared for about five minutes. Reaching 13,255 feet of elevation by day’s end, many trekkers fall victim to the extreme altitude and are forced to descend. In fact, online sources note that typically only 30% of climbers reach the summit of Kilimanjaro, and many people die on the mountain each year due to falling, poor preparation, hypothermia, and the effects of altitude.

Though even experienced porters have died on the mountain, Burgar found these hard-working men to be especially resilient.

“They are all friendly,” she said, adding that a daily occurrence took some getting used to: “Each day as we were hiking, we’d hear hurried footsteps coming from behind.” The porters would rapidly sweep past the trekkers carrying all the gear to set up the next camp. “It was a bit demoralizing at first, but then it became a source of entertainment for us,” she said.

Day five comes just before the final ascent to the summit. This is alpine desert and was covered in cold, miserable fog. To make matters worse, the region provides little opportunity to “use the internet café,” a euphemism Burgar said refers to using an outdoor restroom.

After arriving at camp, the team was treated to Coca Cola and Snickers bars, which Burgar described as "heaven." They were then instructed to have an early dinner and get to bed early because reaching the summit and getting back the next day meant beginning at 11:30 p.m. and hiking through the night.

The final ascent, while not too long, is very steep, Burgar said, and the loose terrain through the skree causes each footstep to backslide. After hours of struggling to breathe and putting one foot in front of the other with no sense of direction, Burgar recalls arriving at Stella Point with temperatures at 17 degrees and probably closer to zero degrees given the wind chill: “We had a few hundred yards to go and about 300 feet in elevation,” she said. “I knew I’d make it.”

Many people consider Stella Point the summit, but Uhuru Peak, which stands at 19,341 feet, is the tallest point in Africa. Telling herself to just keep going, the time became 6:30 a.m., and--as if on cue--the sun inched above the mountain and through the clouds, and Burgar saw the sign that said she’d reached the summit.

Burgar’s fingers were too numb to take pictures and the lack of oxygen made her slighly delirious, so a Maasai guide named Mr. Kim snapped photos. “We didn’t stay long at the summit,” she said, noting that the downhill trek back to camp only took a few hours since the trekkers were able to slide down the skree of the mountain.

Arriving home, Burgar didn’t realize quite what she’d accomplished until she looked at the photos. "Much of the trip consisted of following a guide and not recognizing distances we covered," she said. "It wasn't like running a marathon where you can see what you're accomplishing."

Burgar also said that despite the enormous aerobic effort every day, she didn't heat up as she trekked. "It was surreal," she said. "The altitude and cold kept us from ever getting heated up as we walked."

Burgar is proud to add this trip to her world travels. An avid athlete and runner, she has the distinction of having run on every continent in the world, including the final continent on her list, Antarctica, in March 2011.

To read Burgar's blog and to see photos of the trip, visit http://kilimanjaro2011teamcaltex.shutterfly.com/.

Text saves teen's life

Can a text message save a life? A 16-year-old teenager from Livermore says yes. Here’s the story of Christian, whose last name is being withheld for privacy.

Christian used to live in Sacramento, and because his mother was a drug addict, one day police raided their home to take his mother away.

He remembers her yelling at him, saying the arrest was his fault. She also said if it weren’t for him she would be happy.

Still, just before the police led her away, Christian shouted, “Mommy, I love you!”

Her response continues to haunt him.

“She said she didn’t love me and that if I loved her, I wouldn’t have let this happen,” he said.

This was one of the last times he saw her, and these devastating words changed his life. Although he was placed in a loving foster home, then adopted, and given everything he needed to succeed in life, his birth mother’s words stayed with him.

“I still felt so alone,” he said.

For attention, Christian started acting out in school and in church. He never talked to anyone about what he was going through. “I hid my feelings because I didn’t think anyone would care,” he said. In fact, Christian decided that whenever he had negative thoughts, he would force himself not to think about them. When this didn’t work and he became depressed, he decided to hide this as well.

This led to nightmares in which his mother’s words were repeated over and over.

Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore, so at age 13 he started drinking and using drugs. Finding only temporary relief, he tried to drown himself in a lake while working at a camp one summer. Half drunk, Christian fell into the lake and sank into the water’s darkness. He remembers the moon starting to fade when a senior camp employee jumped in and saved his life.

Several months later in December 2009, he attended a party where a girl he knew asked him what was wrong.

“I froze,” he said. “How did she know? I thought I was able to hide my world from everyone.”

Over the next six months, Christian told his friend about his boyhood. It felt good to talk about it, he said. When she learned about his use of drugs and alcohol, she told him to stop. Christian tried, but couldn’t stop. So again he saw only one solution: suicide. In June 2010, as he cut into his arm and the blood began to flow in his sink, he heard a buzz in his room from his cell phone.

“It was a text from my friend,” he said. She had typed “Sup,” short for “What’s up?”

“That text stopped me from killing myself,” Christian said. He decided to respond, and that was enough to distract him “from one of the stupidest decisions of my life,” he said.

Christian opened up even more to his friend. Again she wanted him to stop his substance abuse, but this time she asked him instead of telling him.

“I realized it was my choice now,” he said.

So Christian stopped. He started to focus on what matters in life. He grew closer to his parents. He stayed in touch with his friend.

“I was learning how to die and she taught me how to live,” he said.

Christian knows that life will be hard for him. “I will run into problems and I will stumble,” he said, “but as long I have my God, my family, and my friends, I will make it through.”

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Young man revisits mother’s death

This column was published by Bay Area News Group in February 2011

When Brian Walker was ten years old, he came upon a scene he had never seen before.

“I found my mom smoking,” he said. “I didn’t know she smoked.”

Still, it wasn’t the smoking that sent a chill through the young boy.

“It was her face. She seemed numb,” he said.

Walker, who is 22 and lives in Pleasanton, said his mother died the next day from a fall from a second story window onto a concrete surface in the backyard. Exactly how she managed to fall remains a mystery. Perhaps an accident, perhaps suicide, whatever happened quietly haunted Walker for many years.

“I was the only one in my family to see my mom alive on her last day,” said Walker, his brown eyes softening.

Walker explained that his parents were divorced, and he and his brothers had spent the night at his father’s house.

“By some fate, I’d forgotten a project at my mom’s house,” Walker said. “So she brought it to my school.”

Standing in front of Walker’s friends that October morning minutes before the bell rang, Nancy Walker bid her son farewell for the last time.

“Have a great day today,” she said, “I love you.”

At age ten, his friends surrounding him, Walker wordlessly raised a hand in a curt farewell. What he did not do was say three simple words to his mother he wishes he said that morning.

“Words are not meaningless,” Walker said. “They have power and can create things both wonderful and monstrous.”

The three most magical words are I love you, he said.

After the death, Walker’s world was different. His friends seemed afraid of saying the wrong thing around him. He watched his older brother struggle with the loss of their mother, while the youngest brother grew up not remembering her.

“Through it all and for many years I told everyone I was fine,” Walker said. “I wanted to be stable, someone I thought my mom would be proud of.”

But, of course, Walker was not fine.

“The hero always manages to utter those three words right before their loved one quietly fades from this world,” Walker said. “But I was no hero.”

Walker had watched his mother spiral into depression, yet did nothing to help her. If he could turn back time, he would put out that cigarette and ask if she was okay.

“I would have sat down with her, hugged her, and told her I loved her,” he said.

After graduating from high school, Walker felt many pressures build in his life. As his sense of guilt finally began to emerge, he began to act recklessly, and in desperation he turned to his father.

“A lot was happening in my life,” Walker said. “I asked my dad to tell me what he knew about my mom’s death.”

His father reassured his son that she had not killed herself, that the fall was just an accident. These words, along with hearing from others that there are easier ways to kill oneself than jumping from a window just two stories high, allowed Walker to realize he had been needlessly blaming himself for a role he did not have in his mother’s death.

Since then Walker has found a purpose and stability in his life.

“The universe is not kind and we cannot rescind our mistakes,” he said. “But we can learn from them, make peace with them, and live our lives.”

Nancy Walker’s death was twelve years ago. Since then her son has learned much about life.

“I think she would be proud of me,” he said.