ESSEX — Two years ago, Kelly Carpenter spent her 29th birthday in the hospital receiving her sixth round of chemotherapy to treat stage three colon cancer.She turned 31 this month in Tanzania, days after climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. The Essex native and nurse at Fletcher Allen Health Care scaled Africa’s tallest mountain with an international group of musicians and cancer survivors that climb mountains to raise money for cancer treatment.
“I’ve always hiked in the summer in Vermont,” Carpenter said. “The highest I’ve ever been was Mansfield, so I had no idea how my body would react to the altitude.”
Mount Mansfield, Vermont’s tallest mountain, rises 4,393 feet. Kilimanjaro, at 19,340 feet, is more than four times taller than Mansfield.
“I did OK,” Carpenter. “We all made it, which was pretty remarkable.”
Carpenter’s party of 25 people reached the summit Oct. 5. They brought with them prayer flags with the names of 6,000 cancer patients. The musicians in the group, including Nick Harper, Mike Peters of The Alarm and Robin Wilson of the Gin Blossoms played songs. Carpenter took pictures.
“Then we had to run down,” Carpenter said. “It was pretty miserable up there, actually.”
Peters, a cancer survivor, co-founded the Love, Hope, Strength Foundation in 2006. In 2007, Peters and other cancer survivors and musicians climbed Mount Everest — roughly the height of seven Mansfields.
Rather than funding cancer research, the organization raises money to buy medical equipment and supplies for cancer centers, as well as to spread awareness of the disease.
Carpenter’s trip lasted about three weeks. In addition to climbing a mountain, she went on a safari and saw zebras, lions and elephants. She returned to Vermont last week.
“It was awesome,” Carpenter said. “It was the experience of a lifetime, for sure.”
Doctors diagnosed Carpenter with colon cancer in May 2007, eight days after she graduated from the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing in Baltimore. She had planned to pursue a career as a pediatric oncology nurse in San Francisco, but instead moved back to Vermont to be closer to friends and family.
Carpenter, who lives in Colchester, said her mother’s win against breast cancer in 2002 inspired her to become a nurse. While receiving treatment at Fletcher Allen, Carpenter worked part-time on the inpatient adult oncology floor.
“I don’t always share that I have cancer,” Carpenter said. “I can really empathize with what people are going through, so yeah, I get how miserable the experience can be.”
Carpenter said she has another colonoscopy scheduled for the near future, but is feeling fine.
“I’m really well,” Carpenter said.
