Community Stories: How Climbing Can Prepare Us for Unchosen Adversity
By Garrett Genereux
The mountains of my dreams now have a permanent space to reside in my brain. This space was created by the removal of a malignant brain tumor that measured approximately 200 cubic centimeters. Yes, that’s a little bigger than an elongated, very full chalk ball. Goodbye right temporal lobe, hello permanent empty space. You can laugh and say that I must have a hole in my head, because I sure do! During my experience with cancer, I made multiple realizations about how my choices and learnings in climbing had unintentionally prepared me for what I was facing. I’d like to share them with you so that you can reflect on mine along with considering how you might define your own.
My climbing journey began like many others, in a gym. I was a new college student looking for a way to exercise my body. I quickly found it was a great way to exercise my mind as well. Years later when graduation rolled around, I was ready to start leading bolted climbs outside. My technical skills continued to build over time. I developed a penchant for big days in the mountains that more often than not were more of an endurance challenge rather than merely a climbing movement challenge. I’ve moved around a bit with my family from Minnesota (MN) to Washington (WA), then Wyoming (WY), to finally landing in Central Oregon. As we moved and our family grew (started solo and now a team of 4!), one constant for me was climbing. While important obligations have reduced my days in the mountains, I gratefully still climb frequently. Difficult trad routes feed my fixation for the synthesis of both physical and mental challenges, a type of voluntary adversity.
Let’s quickly rewind to March 2020. This was a difficult time for many - myself included. I had a pesky floater in my right eye that landed me at my eye doctor’s office. Shockingly, I was then sent to the emergency department for a brain MRI that revealed a massive, cancerous brain tumor. This discovery hit my reality the way building storm clouds make you realize the climb is over and it's time to bail. It is time for action. Over the next year and a half, I was dealing with brain surgeries, seizures, brain bleeds, infections, radiation, chemotherapy treatments and more. At the present time, I am overflowing with gratitude to say that I have no evidence of disease.
As I outline how experiences as a climber can prepare you for unchosen adversity, I’d like to make some clarifications. I identify as a white, cis-gendered, middle class male. I realize the amount of privilege that holds and that it affected my cancer journey and my climbing experiences. When I write “unchosen adversity”, I don’t singularly mean cancer. This has been my unchosen adversity, but hopefully it is not yours. Unchosen adversity can be a chronic illness, an injury that is big or small, grief, mental illness, addiction, and so much more. You simply did not choose what you are facing. We choose the challenge that is climbing. And on that note, I gratefully have been able to experience climbing in a full variety of settings, but as I write “climbing,” that can be at the crag, in the gym, on a competitive team, or in the mountains. To me, climbing is wherever you access the vertical world and challenge yourself physically and mentally.
Knowing it Will be Uncomfortable
Do you climb because it is easy? I didn’t think so. Whether you climb for the movement and exercise, the psychological demand, or for achievement, you are going to be uncomfortable mentally. One of my favorite parts of climbing is deepening my relationship with fear, to feel that fear of falling and then continuing onward. As Frank Herbert writes in Dune, “Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear.” I allowed myself to really feel my deepest fear twice since my initial diagnosis. What if this is the cause of my death and I miss out on all of the amazing things yet to come with my daughters? Their graduations, possible weddings, just them growing into adults. To not be there for any of that is crushing, both then and now. I battle those fears by spending time in the moment with the girls. Whether it is coaching their soccer team, going on hikes, reading at home, or climbing with them. And just like I did, we must acknowledge the existence of our challenges and fears. To take the time and space to sit with them, and then decide how to move forward. In our chosen adversities, we can make healthy decisions to select a different path; however, we do not always have that liberty when we face challenges not by choice. With our unchosen adversity, we do not have the option to just quit when it’s uncomfortable. You will continue and you will not quit. You’ll do what needs to be done and continue forth.
Persistence, Relentless, Resilient
Climbers are a special kind of stubborn. Repetitively climbing the same thing over and over again until it is completed. Completed as a project, while now, it is completed as a warmup for the next project. Perhaps you would not consider yourself a “project” climber. After trying a route a few times, you move on to something else, looking for an onsight. Well maybe it is not the same route but you keep climbing, you keep showing up. You do not simply give in, sell your stinky shoes and call it good. You cannot just give up when something hard shows up on your doorstep. And you won’t, you are a climber. You know that you must persist until it is sent, it takes time, effort and patience, but it will go. Sometimes persistence will make the process faster, maybe not. Maybe you need other inputs to continue forward. Coincidentally, I have also broken a few ribs (pesky stairs) and my back (decked outside, not recommended) post-brain cancer. From routes I’ve found success on, there is a process that works best for me. I could not rush the healing of my body no matter how much I wanted to. While I felt well enough for certain activities, including climbing, I could not skip ahead in the healing process without risking setbacks. I had to be patient and persistent, to do the physical therapy when I did not want to, to go to the follow-up visits when they were inconvenient, to do the things that would eventually bring success.
Unexpected Results and Failure: Accepting, learning, trying again
Are you going to make it to the top? Will you make the crux move this time? While we can expect to do so, we know deep down we might not. Perhaps you slip for the first time in a spot that you’ve cruised so many times before. Once it happens, we have no choice but to accept the result. We cannot magically float back up and do the move correctly and change our technique or sequence that caused us to fall. What you do have control over is how your next attempt will go, to determine what might work next. When I was told in the emergency room that I had a large tumor in my brain, I could not change that fact. There is no time machine to go back and eat more acai and goji berries or seek some other anti-cancer agent. I had no control over the situation no matter how much I wanted to. I had to accept reality and determine how I would move forward. Over the following weeks, we had to determine what choices we did have control over and what the next steps were. What’s the beta and how to execute to the best of our abilities. This is a continuous cycle that can be applied in all types of adversity: acceptance and realization, fear and uncertainty, processing the risk, ACTION, assessment of results, learning and growth, then repeat.
Being Vulnerable for All to See
It takes so much courage to make the decision to go for it as all of your friends standby, waiting to see if you can do it. Do you remember what it was like to hop on some of your first climbs in the gym as a complete novice? It seemed other folks floated around the gym crushing those V double digits or leads on the cave wall. What would they think as you flail your way up the VB or 5.6? Should I ask for beta? Do I really need beta to do this climb? What about the time you fell on a qualifier at a regional comp? We’ve all had these types of experiences and yet we made the choice to go for it, and continue to choose to put ourselves in vulnerable positions. All forms of unchosen adversity will demand some form of emotional vulnerability. To be seen at your lowest will require vulnerability. It may mean you need to ask for help. I found this to be extremely challenging, but I had to realize I was no longer capable of what I was previously and needed help so that I could accomplish what I needed to focus on. To find humility is a strength, once this hurdle is cleared, so much more is possible.
Who Shows Up
Who cheers you on at even the smallest accomplishment? Is your partner or teammate psyched for you when you made it one move higher on your project which they coincidentally use for a warm-up? Amazing. Are they checking in on you after they know you haven’t been motivated to show up to the gym over the last couple of weeks? These are the types of people who are going to be there for you when you need them the most. All of your friends and family are going to be important, but there are folks who you are going to really need to push you forward or brighten your day at the hardest moments. I was really good friends with Lance prior to brain cancer, but it wasn’t until then, that I realized that he was my best friend. He brought his energy, deep insights, and caring attitude, all attributes that had already made him one of my favorite climbing partners. Lance dropped his obligations and flew up to be there for the days leading up to and the day of my first surgery. He called to ask how I was doing and sent quotes or his own thoughts when I really needed them. He kept me on belay from day one, helping me stay on route, and shouting encouragement when I was about to grease off.
Finding Joy in the Little Things
Seeing the way the light hits that dirty floor at the gym, the way the staff greeted you in the evening, or when you remembered to turn around on route at the crag to see the amazing view behind you. No matter the overarching reasons for your choice to climb, I believe it is the little moments that keep us motivated for the bigger picture. Seeing someone hit the little gong on the top of the check-in counter as part of the impromptu ceremony staff put on for a patient completing their last radiation treatment always brought a smile to my face and tears to my eyes as I waited for my name to be called for my treatment. I knew that eventually it would be me standing up there with my radiation mask in hand, taking it home as a memory of my time laying on the table being blasted with beams for twenty minutes every weekday for six and a half weeks. Catching some great podcast episodes had me looking forward to the two hour round trip drive down to Fort Collins each day. How do you find motivation to keep trying when it seems almost meaningless? How do you find the beauty in the mundane?
Feeling Gratitude
The same way we choose to climb, we should choose to be grateful. Gratitude is a key we all carry that can open doors. Having the time and money to choose to climb, indoors or out, should bring us all some form of gratitude. Beyond that, your body is capable of climbing in whatever format(s) you are able to. Incredible. While we likely openly celebrate our “accomplishments”- grades, podiums, first ascents, etc. please never forget that you have the freedom to go climbing. Even when you do not perform how you would like, or don’t get out as frequently as you want, we still get to climb. I gratefully had access to some absolutely world class doctors, had insurance that covered a lot of my medical expenses, an amazing community and so much more. Even when our own bubble feels like it is closing in on us, if we take a step back and look at the big picture, you will find something to be grateful for, big or small.
Many within and outside of our community argue that when boiled down, climbing is pretty trivial. But when examined in this aspect you’ll find it to be so much more. The armor fortifying you into a resilient soul prepared for life’s adversities. I hope you are able to muster all of the energy needed for when you face unchosen adversity, and you will, it comes for all of us at some point in many forms. When it arrives suddenly or builds over time, you are capable, you are steeled, you have the tools to make it through. Your choice to climb, prepares you for this, each and every time you slip your shoes on and chalk up. I outlined the tools that kept me going, learned from my climbing experiences, but what about yours? Now is the time to reflect and realize what climbing has taught you and continues to teach you.
