Steve Keaton had several goals to accomplish when he set out to climb Mount Kilimanjaro last month with two of his childhood friends. Keaton, a 54-year old social studies teacher and football, wrestling and girls lacrosse coach at Reagan High School, said before he left that the experience might be “my last great adventure.” The most important goals for him – raising awareness for PTSD and depression in veterans and raising awareness for prostate cancer screenings – definitely came to fruition.
“I’ve had a ton of conversations since I’ve been back about those things,” Keaton said. “Lots of people have told me they have made appointments to go get checked. So many people have told me, ‘Well, we didn’t know you had prostate cancer.
’ It wasn’t a secret, but I wasn’t walking up to people, either. Their awareness now of my situation has opened up some doors to some good conversations. The mission for that has worked out really well.
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Steve Keaton, an assistant football coach, wrestling and girls lacrosse coach at Reagan, before his Mount Kilimanjaro climb. Keaton has had both hips replaced. He was a police officer in Charlotte for five years and served in the Army and was part of the first group of ground forces to enter Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm.
He also has PTSD from his military service. Keaton was diagnosed with prostate cancer in May. His prognosis is good.
He and his friends, Cindy and Jeep Brown of Charlotte, set out to scale Kilimanjaro, all 19,341 feet of it, last month. Keaton made it 18,835 feet before his bout with altitude sickness took hold. “I had been struggling since Day 2,” Keaton said.
“I could not eat anything. I would force myself to eat and was getting maybe 200-250 calories a day. I wasn’t nauseated or anything, I think my brain had just shut food off.
Our water was treated with iodine, and that was a really strong taste that gave a lot of us acid reflux.” Keaton Keaton’s group consisted of 10 people from throughout the world. He and his companions were the only Americans.
“We had people from Greece, England, Denmark, Ireland and France,” Keaton said. “There was a 17-year old in our group who just crushed it.” Despite his struggles, Keaton managed to keep plugging up the mountain.
Their group made it to Stella Point (18,835 feet) and were closing in on their quest to reach the summit. “The grade is really steep, we had already hiked about six or seven miles that morning, and by the time we reached Stella Point, I couldn’t see out of my left eye,” Keaton said. “It’s also pitch dark outside as you leave to reach the summit around 11 p.
m. They want everyone to have the experience of reaching the summit around sunrise, because it’s spectacular.” Keaton said that’s when things got fuzzy for him.
“All of a sudden, Cindy (Brown) said she heard me say that I was falling,” Keaton said. “And apparently, I just fell backwards. Our guides grabbed me and were checking me out.
I wasn’t having any issues breathing, but the guides told me they had to get me down the mountain and they had to get me down now. I didn’t even have time to say ‘no.’” Keaton said that they had hiked for about six hours at that point that day.
“It took us about three (hours) to get back to our basecamp,” Keaton said. “Once we got there, they put me in my tent and kept monitoring me. One guy just stood outside and kept an eye on me the whole time.
We had seen so many people get airlifted off the mountain. One thing that was not going to happen was that I was not going to be airlifted off that mountain. I’d say I was fully recovered around 2 p.
m. that afternoon.” Keaton said that everyone in his group reached the summit.
“Just so thrilled for them,” he said.” Some of them don’t have any recollection of it except for the pictures they took. It was brutally cold.
On summit day, it was eight or nine degrees and the wind was just howling. I was super content with where I made it to. I knew I had given it everything I had.
I lost 17 pounds that week. It was beautiful up there. You’re above the clouds.
It feels like you’re on a different planet. But that altitude hit me really, really hard.” Keaton had a 15-hour return flight from Nairobi to New York and then a lengthy layover before his flight to Charlotte.
Ultimately, he returned home around 9 p.m. on July 25.
“We landed in New York around 7 a.m. and by 8 a.
m., I was eating pizza and drinking coffee. Let me tell you, it was so good,” Keaton said.
“My buddies were drinking beer, but my stomach wasn’t quite there yet. I savored every bite of that pizza.” Keaton said that he had one request for his wife and daughter, who picked him up from the Charlotte airport.
“I asked her if we could stop by T.J.’s Deli on the way home,” Keaton said.
“I needed a double bacon cheeseburger, some onion rings and a root beer. That was so good. I felt like a king.
And it never felt so good to sleep in my own bed that night.” Keaton had a few days to recover and jumped right back into to the start of football practice on July 31. “Honestly, I felt like I had been run over a truck that I never saw for a few days,” Keaton said.
“I felt really sluggish. The staff at Reagan has been awesome and the players have been great. It was a great experience, it really was.
But I told my wife that she wouldn’t ever have to worry about me doing something like this again. I’m officially retired. My 30-minute walk around the Town and Country neighborhood will be just fine.
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