Partially Blind Woman Achieves Dream of Climbing Mount Everest

June 1, 2010— -- She's scuba dived in Iceland and Indonesia, gone on safari in Africa and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. So when Cindy Abbott saw a television special on Mount Everest, she knew that would be her next adventure.

Abbott, 51, contacted a high-altitude guide about how to train for the climb. But five months later, she suddenly lost the vision in her left eye.

Losing her eyesight was another symptom that doctors could not explain in her 15 years of living with Wegener's granulomatosis, a rare disease that affects one in 30,000 people, according to the Vasculitis Foundation.

"The blindness was a good thing in a way because I got diagnosed," said Abbott, who lives in Orange County, Calif. "It led my doctors, who had been seeing me for years and not knowing what was wrong with me."

Abbott has had joint problems and mini strokes, and her voice has changed as the disease alters her throat tissue. There is no cure for Wegener's granulomatosis, and Abbott controls the symptoms with a 16-pill-a-day medication regimen.

"Simply speaking, my immune system is attacking my blood vessels and destroying them," said Abbott.

But her diagnosis did not mean the end to her dream of climbing Everest. Instead, Abbott continued her training climbs. She scaled Mount Aconcagua in Argentina, Mount Elbrus in Russia and Peak Lenin in Kyrgyzstan, deciding to make her Everest climb an awareness and fundraising campaign for Wegener's granulomatosis and other rare diseases.

"We have no drugs that are specific for our diseases," said Abbott. "There's no money in the drug companies to research to make a drug for them. And there's not enough of us to make the doctors aware of the diseases."

But why attempt a feat that most healthy people would not think of doing?

"It's me showing myself it isn't what controls me," said Abbott. "I'm responsible about my treatment. But if I want to climb a mountain or go scuba diving in Iceland, it's not going to dictate whether I do or not, at this point."