My Inspiring Networking Weekend:Part1-Chris Bombardier
This weekend, I had an opportunity to attend a conference in Phoenix, AZ. Many of you know that I am the director of Camp Little Oak, a volunteer-run non-profit camp for girls with bleeding disorders (and carriers and siblings). The conference was for people who run these kinds of camps--camps for kids with bleeding disorders. It was an amazing conference (always is), with lots of great ideas, guidance, advice and networking. It truly makes me a better camp director, and hopefully everyone else who attends as well. While there, I had the opportunity to talk a bit (various levels) to several people, but three (kind of four) of them are the types of people who you meet and think, "You are an inspiring person." So, over the next three days, I will share the stories and missions of these people. They are somewhat arranged in order of hero to absolute-saint this time.
Our first person is Chris Bombardier. I had heard the name before and thought that he was pretty cool. But I'd never met him actually. And I'm embarrassed to say that when I first ran into him at the opening activity, I didn't recognize it. He introduced himself to me with his name and the camp he works with (Camp Mile High in Colorado) and I was thinking, "I think I know that name. Why? Did I meet him a this conference once and don't remember? Why do I know that name?" Well, the theme of the conference was "Reaching for New Heights," so the person giving the opening mentioned his name and then said, "And we have him here in our midst, actually." Then it clicked. Oh yeah. Embarrassing. That guy. He was talking about how once, their camp posed the question to their campers, "What is your Everest?" He had to shrug and say, "Well, I guess my Everest is literally Everest."
Chris Bombardier is a severe, type B hemophiliac who is doing something many people would say is impossible or insane for anyone, let alone a hemophiliac--scaling the Seven Summits. The Seven Summits is a mountain climbing feat of climbing the highest mountain of each continent. Seven Summiters is an elite club, and they mean business. There are only about 300 Seven Summiters in history. Before you say, "Well a lot of people SAY they're going to do that, but they never do," he's already done four. McKinley, Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, and Aconcogua. The strangest part, he doesn't freak out about climbing a mountain, but gets very, very nervous with public speaking. And needles, which is very strange. As he explains it, he has to psych himself up for each self-infusion, and looks away in movies and television when they fake-needle into someone's skin.
Now this would be pretty inspiring on its own, but he takes it a step further. His mission to climb the Seven Summits has two parts: inspiring young hemophiliacs in the US. You can do anything. Factor treatments are effective, and as long as you are smart and adhere to treatment plans, you can be adventurous. That's why he takes teenage hemophiliacs on adventure trips with his program called "Backpacks and Bleeders." We are not quite that adventurous at Camp Little Oak. He also writes humorous blog posts about things like tips on how to access your vein on the side of a snow-covered mountain. His other part is to draw attention to the factor disparity.
He compares himself to a young boy with hemophilia in Kenya who he met. And while Chris climbs mountains, this boy can't walk. Because there is unequal access to factor. This aspect will come up day after day. But many countries for a wide-variety of reasons (and corrupt governments usually come into the mix somewhere in it), do not have access to factor--an inject-able form of the exact protein that a hemophiliac lacks. They are not the same as you and me with factor (because that would take a lot of factor and a lot of money), but they are able to avoid be crippled by age fourteen (at the oldest) and, in many cases, death.
So, he climbs these mountains to benefit an organization called Save One Life, which gives factor access to young hemophiliacs across the world.
And he's the nicest guy you'll ever meet, and he cheered me on when I was on the "Be Brave" relay team with him and had to eat two entire raw leaves of kale as fast as humanly possible. A note on that, I love the taste of kale. But raw, it is kind of like grass, and it takes forever to chew, and I don't have space for two leaves of it in my mouth. I believe he was the one who licked a nine-volt battery for our team. But I could be wrong about that. It got a little crazy in that room.
To learn more about him, here's his blog. To learn more about (or donate to) Save One Life, here's their link.
Our first person is Chris Bombardier. I had heard the name before and thought that he was pretty cool. But I'd never met him actually. And I'm embarrassed to say that when I first ran into him at the opening activity, I didn't recognize it. He introduced himself to me with his name and the camp he works with (Camp Mile High in Colorado) and I was thinking, "I think I know that name. Why? Did I meet him a this conference once and don't remember? Why do I know that name?" Well, the theme of the conference was "Reaching for New Heights," so the person giving the opening mentioned his name and then said, "And we have him here in our midst, actually." Then it clicked. Oh yeah. Embarrassing. That guy. He was talking about how once, their camp posed the question to their campers, "What is your Everest?" He had to shrug and say, "Well, I guess my Everest is literally Everest."
Chris Bombardier is a severe, type B hemophiliac who is doing something many people would say is impossible or insane for anyone, let alone a hemophiliac--scaling the Seven Summits. The Seven Summits is a mountain climbing feat of climbing the highest mountain of each continent. Seven Summiters is an elite club, and they mean business. There are only about 300 Seven Summiters in history. Before you say, "Well a lot of people SAY they're going to do that, but they never do," he's already done four. McKinley, Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, and Aconcogua. The strangest part, he doesn't freak out about climbing a mountain, but gets very, very nervous with public speaking. And needles, which is very strange. As he explains it, he has to psych himself up for each self-infusion, and looks away in movies and television when they fake-needle into someone's skin.
Now this would be pretty inspiring on its own, but he takes it a step further. His mission to climb the Seven Summits has two parts: inspiring young hemophiliacs in the US. You can do anything. Factor treatments are effective, and as long as you are smart and adhere to treatment plans, you can be adventurous. That's why he takes teenage hemophiliacs on adventure trips with his program called "Backpacks and Bleeders." We are not quite that adventurous at Camp Little Oak. He also writes humorous blog posts about things like tips on how to access your vein on the side of a snow-covered mountain. His other part is to draw attention to the factor disparity.
He compares himself to a young boy with hemophilia in Kenya who he met. And while Chris climbs mountains, this boy can't walk. Because there is unequal access to factor. This aspect will come up day after day. But many countries for a wide-variety of reasons (and corrupt governments usually come into the mix somewhere in it), do not have access to factor--an inject-able form of the exact protein that a hemophiliac lacks. They are not the same as you and me with factor (because that would take a lot of factor and a lot of money), but they are able to avoid be crippled by age fourteen (at the oldest) and, in many cases, death.
So, he climbs these mountains to benefit an organization called Save One Life, which gives factor access to young hemophiliacs across the world.
And he's the nicest guy you'll ever meet, and he cheered me on when I was on the "Be Brave" relay team with him and had to eat two entire raw leaves of kale as fast as humanly possible. A note on that, I love the taste of kale. But raw, it is kind of like grass, and it takes forever to chew, and I don't have space for two leaves of it in my mouth. I believe he was the one who licked a nine-volt battery for our team. But I could be wrong about that. It got a little crazy in that room.
To learn more about him, here's his blog. To learn more about (or donate to) Save One Life, here's their link.
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