Disease doesn't defeat man's determination to climb

By RAY WEISS
Staff Writer

ORMOND BEACH --A steady rain fell outside Gold's Gym, a perfect excuse for someone looking to postpone a workout for another day.

Andrew Hebson's not that someone.

He looks forward to every workout, every day of life.

On the outside, the muscular body that took Hebson to a state weightlifting title and the top of Mt. Everest is gone, ravaged by a cruel and terminal disease that transforms able-bodied adults into bedridden invalids.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease, has sapped Hebson's strength, but not his spirit.

At age 54, he's preparing his failing muscles for one more climb, one more sunrise on top of the world, this time to Ecuador's Mt. Chimborazo, the world's highest volcanic peak, rising nearly 21,000 feet.

"Basically, I've gone from my deathbed to walking," he said, as his son set 100 pounds of weight on a leg-extension machine inside his hometown gym. "A month ago, I couldn't even hold my head up."

As a last resort, Hebson says he turned to a cutting-edge holistic health program developed by a cellular biologist in Arizona that at least has delayed his ultimate fate. He's out of his Jacksonville nursing home and back in the gym.

But ALS isn't a disease where patients normally take a turn for the better. The illness slowly shuts down the body, while the brain remains fully functional, whether it's in two or 20 years. Hebson was diagnosed in January 2005, although symptoms such as twitching muscles started showing up a year or two before.

Still, as far as he's concerned, that was then.

"I lift weights three days a week, and climb stairs two times a week," Hebson said, catching his breath between exercises. "I'm concentrating on mobility stuff. I have to work on my balance. The main thing is my legs and back. That's what carries you up the mountain."

Amy Dunham, a spokeswoman for the ALS Association's Florida Chapter, said Hebson's grit and anticipated climb will be an inspiration for others suffering with the disease.

"It's easy for a patient and their family to see it as a death sentence," she said. "That's not the way Andrew looks at it at all. He lives every day to the fullest."

Hebson isn't looking to break any speed record to the summit of Mt. Chimborazo. A climb that usually takes four days is expected to take 18 for his team of nine men and women. The expedition includes two nursing assistants, Kenyan women, who helped care for him at the Jacksonville nursing home. One already has climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro.

"I'll take some falls, that's a given. But I'll have so much stuff on I won't feel it," Hebson said with a grin. "No matter if it takes me a day to get out the door (of the tent), so be it. I'm just going to do it, even if it's on my hands and knees. I'm not worried about time."

His oldest son, Drew, a 30-year-old chef from Pittsburgh, plans on joining his father on the climb. It will be his first.

"If he can make this climb, it will be a hell of an achievement, even if he doesn't summit," the younger Hebson said. "He looks about the same as when I saw him last year. I heard he went downhill and then back up. It remains to be seen how long the bounce-back will last."

He said his father doesn't talk of death, only living.

"If he's angry about it, he's really good at covering it up," Drew Hebson added. "Even when he takes a turn for the worse, he gets through it with a joke."

Right now Mt. Chimborazo is his father's main topic of conversation. The planned climb has regenerated him both physically and emotionally, giving him a goal to achieve.

"No one with ALS has ever attempted anything like this. It's going to be a real spectacular climb," Hebson said. "The upper two-thirds is solid ice and steep."

Two other climbers will position themselves with ropes on each side of Hebson in case he loses his balance. When needed, he'll use a special metal walker with spikes for better traction.

"But I'm making the climb myself," he vowed.

Hebson grew up in the mountains of Virginia and Kentucky and started climbing them as a young boy.

As an adult, he made his living as a commercial diver, custom boat builder and race-horse owner. In his free time, he competed for 38 years as a weightlifter, finishing first in the Masters division of the 2002 Sunshine State Games.

"I'm not a 9-to-5 guy," he said.

In between jobs, climbing mountains has been his true passion. He's lost count of all the summits he's stood atop around the world. He has lived on and off in Ormond Beach over the years.

"I must have climbed 20 alone in the Himalayas," he said.

Besides the great Everest in 2000, he reached the top of Mt. Cho Oyu in 1999, the sixth highest peak in the world at nearly 27,000 feet high. Hebson almost lost his life there in a fall. But a safety anchor held, and he dropped only 200 feet, instead of two miles.

Climbing now will be more of a challenge, since he usually must use a walker to even get around on level ground.

Still, his close friend, Cindy Chapman of Ormond Beach, sees the muscle tone returning to Hebson's legs. She is confident he'll make November's climb, and hopes to join him there.

"What this means to him is that he's not going to be defeated," she said. "He's always been a warrior."

Back in 2003, Chapman and Hebson climbed Mt. Pico de Orizaba in Mexico, where the final 4,000 feet was vertical ice. They reached the summit of the 19,000-foot mountain at sunrise on Thanksgiving Day. It was her first climb.

Hebson said he's "hell-bent" on getting to Ecuador in November.

"Cindy and I planned on doing this before the onset of Lou Gehrig's," he said. "She's my inspiration."

In the gym, Hebson readjusted his thin frame on the exercise machine, his eyes still filled with determination. Cycle after cycle, he pushed his failing muscles to their fullest, preparing for the climb of his life.

"After this one? I don't know," he said, grinning. "But we'll think of something."

ray.weiss@news-jrnl.com

Donations for the climb can be made, and images of the climb will be able to be seen, at www.alsafl.org.

Did You Know?

While Mt. Everest is technically the highest mountain on Earth, Ecuador's Mt. Chimborazo is closer to outer space.

· At 29,035 feet above sea level, Everest's peak is taller than Chimborazo's 20,702 foot peak. However, due to its location on a topographic bulge near the Earth's equator, Chimborazo is 1.5 miles closer to space.

Because of the bulge, which circles the planet just below the equator, Earth is not a sphere but an "oblate spheroid." So, while Everest is the highest mountain above sea level, Chimborazo, in the Andes, pokes further into space and is also further from the center of the Earth.

SOURCES: Compiled by News Researcher Janice Cahill from Asheville Citizen-Times and npr.org.

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