| In
Crossing Divides: A Couple's Story of Cancer, Hope
and Hiking Montana's Continental Divide, Scott
Bischke, '81 ChE, tells a story of love, for his wife
and for the land, and how the two have intertwined to
heal. |
| It
was an ordinary day in 1992 when Scott's wife Kate, then
30, called him with the news that she had cervical cancer.
Surgery removed the cancer, but two years later it recurred.
"As that point we were told she had eight months to live." |
| Today,
in 2003, Kate has been cancer free for eight years and
the couple is in the midst of completing an 800-mile,
two month trek across New Mexico, the final leg of their
hike along the Continental Divide Trail from Canada to
Mexico. |
| Scott
and Kate, who today live in Bozeman, met in Colorado and
were married in Soldiers Chapel in Big Sky. They have
always loved hiking and camping in the outdoors, even
taking a year off to bicycle through New Zealand. "We
love nature and wild country. They provide such a healing,
spiritual place for the body and soul." |
| After
Kate was told she was terminally ill, she took responsibility
for her own health and found new doctors. Over a two and
a half year period Kate went through the reoccurrence
of the cancer, five surgeries, chemotherapy and internal
and external radiation treatments. |
| "During
treatment we talked a lot about the things we wanted to
do after she got well. We went to a conference and listened
to Walkin' Jim Stoltz, a long distance hiker from Big
Sky. We realized that hiking is something that we'd done
before the cancer and we wanted to make the effort to
return to those things that had always meant so much to
us. We didn't want cancer to control us, even in its absence."
|
| In
the summer of 1998, three years after Kate's final cancer
treatment, they made the decision to spend three months
hiking 800 miles across Montana along the Continental
Divide. "Kate not only completed the hike, but she thrived
on it." |
| Toward
the end of the hike Scott and Kate decided that they wanted
to share their stories with the goal of providing inspiration
and hope to others fighting cancer or some other life-threatening
disease. From that decision came the book, Crossing
Divides, written by Scott and published by the American
Cancer Society last fall. It intertwines the story of
their cancer struggle with the story of their walk across
Montana. |
|
"I love to write, but it was a very big deal that Kate
was willing to allow her experiences to be shared. The
feedback we've gotten from the book and the presentations
that we give is that our story is giving people hope."
|
