<http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/unwind/story.html?id=1ddb3a72-30d9-4f0e-\
a702-1af142dc87ca>

Winning an uphill battle

With six summits down, Rob Hill embarks on the ultimate expedition to
Mount Everest this spring
Neville Judd, The Province
Published: Sunday, February 17, 2008

A little more than a decade ago, 23-year-old Rob Hill embarked on one of
the toughest climbs of his life.

Holed up in his parents' North Van basement suite and weighing 105 pounds,
Hill's unsteady ascent of the stairs to the kitchen that day in 1994
represented his own personal Everest. His message from the top was simple
and Rob's mom, Cheryl, will never forget it.

"He said, 'I think I'm dying,'" recalls Cheryl.

Next month, Rob Hill sets off for another tough climb. This time he's
heading for Nepal to climb Mount Everest in May.

Reaching the 29,035-foot (8,850 metres) peak will likely demand as much
willpower as it took Hill to get up those stairs 14 years ago. How he got
there is the story of No Guts, Know Glory.

- - -

In 1993 Rob Hill was in the best shape of his life. He loved the mountains
and climbed whenever he could. He had a good job with Motorola in
Richmond, worked out regularly in a nearby gym and competed in marathons
and triathlons. (He ran his first marathon in Grade 2.)

Then he ate some bad cream cheese.

"That triggered it. Vomiting, diarrhea, pain, nausea and weight loss."

Hill was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, an inflammatory bowel disease
that causes painful swelling of the digestive tract.

Hill had never heard of it.

"'What is it?', was my first reaction," says Hill. "The symptoms are
pretty scary and for me they were really bad. I just never seemed to get
healthy.

"Crohn's can be triggered by food that's gone off. In my case it was bad
cream cheese."

For the next 18 months, Hill's condition worsened. His muscular five foot
eleven frame dwindled alarmingly from 185 pounds to 105 pounds. Then he
stopped weighing himself.

"It was very difficult," recalls Cheryl, who watched her son's "unique,
wicked sense of humour" disappear to be replaced by brooding silence
punctuated only by bouts of anger.

"He was very angry. He blew up from time to time, he had a short temper
and his answers were short ... shorter than they needed to be."

Hill says he thought he was being punished for something. "I asked, 'Why
me?'"

"I considered taking my own life."

Life appeared to be slipping away anyway.

In 1995, Hill underwent surgery to remove his large intestine. When
colorectal surgeon Dr. Michael Pezim opened up the patient it first
appeared he had cancer.

"The intestine wall had attached itself to Rob's liver," says Cheryl.
"Robert was quite correct. He was dying."

Minus his large intestine, Hill was equipped with an ostomy -- an external
pouch attached to his ileum through the abdominal wall to collect stools.
With his body stabilized and the pain regulated, Hill was able to regain
physical strength and prepare for a life with Crohn's.

"When it came down to losing my colon or losing my life, it wasn't a hard
decision to make," says Hill.

But a nagging question persisted.

"Turned out an auntie of mine had Crohn's, but no one talked about it and
that puzzled me," says Hill. "You don't talk to people about it, it's just
frightening, it's about going to the bathroom. It took eight years to the
point where I was willing to speak about it."

Downsized from his high-tech job at Motorola, Hill enrolled in a
wilderness leadership program at North Vancouver's Capilano College in
2001. There, he rediscovered his love of the mountains and an idea was
hatched.

Bothered by what he saw as the social stigma of Crohn's and other
digestive disorders, such as ulcerative colitis and irritable bowel
syndrome, he decided to do something about it.

...

A WORD ABOUT CROHN'S

Crohn's and a related disease, ulcerative colitis, are the two main
disease categories that belong to a larger group of illnesses called
inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Edmonton Oilers forward Fernando Pisani was diagnosed with the latter last
year.

They are marked by an exaggerated response by the body's immune system.
Researchers believe that the immune system mistakes bacteria that is
normally found in the intestines for foreign or invading substances, and
launches an attack. The body then sends white blood cells into the lining
of the intestines, where they produce chronic inflammation. These cells
then generate harmful products that ultimately lead to ulcerations and
bowel injury.