Kenn Trout vividly remembers Father’s Day 2007, sitting in the stands watching his son’s baseball game.
It was a pleasant outing, sunshine and 70 degrees. Trout came dressed in a long coat, concealing the chemo pump that was feeding his veins.
“I was lucky, young and healthy. I had a fighting chance,” Trout recalled.
Others gripped by cancer have not been as fortunate.
Trout, a Bonney Lake resident and Auburn businessman, survived squamous cell (soft tissue) cancer – an ordeal that consumed him for most of 2007.
In February of that year, doctors discovered a tumor behind Trout’s left tonsil. Four months of chemotherapy, including 38 straight days of radiation, ensued. By September, Trout received good news that the treatment had worked.
Today, the 48-year-old Trout is 70 pounds lighter and moving ahead. He is celebrating two years of remission, thanks to good care and a strong support structure, notably from family and friends.
“I was humbled after realizing that it just wasn’t my battle. My family, friends and business associates were in this with me,” Trout recently wrote on his blog, Climbers for Cancers. “I could never repay the support and the work that all of them offered. You really find out what true friendship is.”
As a payback, Trout decided to help those who had helped him. He joined his buddies for a summer climbing expedition on Mount Rainier – an adventurous mission to raise funds for other cancer patients and support Capital Oncology’s Auburn Regional Cancer Center.
The idea to climb the mighty mountain came from the heart, inspired by a successful summit made a year ago by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and then-Seahawks coach Jim Mora.
“It was a challenge, something I wanted to do,” Trout said.
Undone by foul weather and worn down physically, Trout didn’t reach the 14,111-foot summit, but most of his party did. In doing so, the team raised more than $14,000 for the Western Washington Cancer Research Foundation and its Capital Oncology patient care fund.
And pledges continue to come in at www.active.com/donate/ClimbersforCancer. They hope to raise $75,000 for the foundation.
Members of Trout’s climbing team dedicated the climb to those loved ones affected by cancer, including the leader himself.
“I saw the courage that Kenn Trout displayed in facing the disease and was inspired by his will to get through,” said fellow climber Larry Larson.
Trout was been encouraged by the effort and plans to do more for the center.
“The good thing is giving back to the community, and the Auburn community has been great to us,” Trout said.
Trout plans to revisit Mount Rainier and reach higher than 8,200 feet.
“I will try again in 2012 … my 50th birthday,” he said. “It just falls back on my bucket list.”
