Cranberry woman, sister climb Mt. Fuji in defiance of cancer
CRANBERRY TWP — Before she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, Deana Dietzler Chiusano had such extreme anemia she couldn't climb a flight of stairs or take her son in and out of his car seat.
During her initial treatments before receiving a stem cell transplant, she didn't have enough energy to walk down the street or stand for more than a few minutes.
“So to be alive and able to climb a mountain six years later is pretty awesome,” she said.
Dietzler Chiusano, of Cranberry, and her older sister Deborah Dietzler, of Athens, Ga. climbed Mount Fuji, the highest point in Japan as part of the Moving Mountains for Multiple Myeloma program to raise money for the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.
They completed the two-day climb with a team of other multiple myeloma patients on July 20.
Dietzler Chiusano was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2011. Deana's blood cancer, which develops in the bone marrow, is under control thanks to a clinical trial being put on by Emory University in Georgia.
As one could imagine, climbing a 12,388-foot tall mountain was no easy feat but especially not for someone with cancer. Dietzler Chiusano said it was hard, but they went slow and steady up the rocky mountain trail to the peak.
When things would get tough, Dietzler Chiusano would think about her friends with multiple myeloma who would not be able to make the climb,
“I would say their names while I took steps and my mind went someplace else,” she said.
They reached a hut on the mountainside and rested for several hours before waking up again at 12:30 a.m. to begin the final climb to the top with the goal of reaching the summit at sunrise around 4:30 a.m.
Dietzler Chiusano said it was beautiful at the top, but she won't be climbing a mountain again anytime soon. Her sister, though, is ready for another challenge.
“I certainly would go do it again, but Deana will kill me if I sign her up for something like this again,” Dietzler said. “So I guess we'll have to plan a spa day for MMRF.”
Moving Mountains for Multiple Myeloma takes patients and caregivers to climb mountains all over the world to show how advances in medicine allow patients to live longer and higher quality lives than ever before. All money raised through the program goes to research for the disease.
The sisters' team, called BTHO MM, raised a little more than $19,000 for the foundation and came out on top in fundraising over other teams on the trip.
Their team name has been a source of inspiration throughout Dietzler Chiusano's battle with cancer; it came from the sisters' alma mater, Texas A&M University. At football games, Aggie fans yell a variety of chants including “Beat the hella outta” whatever opponent they are facing that week, Dietzler said.
So when her sister was first diagnosed, Dietzler got the hospital room and promptly wrote on the white board “BTHO and a blank line,” she said.
“I said whatever we're facing here, we're going to beat the hell outta it,” Dietzler said. “We have called ourselves that since the beginning of this … It's working so far, so that's good.”
