The soundtrack of Klaas Willems’ life is a persistent cough. Sometimes you feel like you’re drowning: your lungs refuse to fight anymore, they get stuck and everything will fall apart forever. Despite everything, he is still alive. At 35 years old. The day he turned 25 was the most disturbing of his life: there he was, breathing, moving, celebrating. For the next week he lived in a sort of depression. He simply didn’t know how to behave or what to do with his life, or rather with what was left of his life, however long it was. As a child, doctors told him that he had cystic fibrosis and would die at the age of 25. After years of carrying the Sword of Damocles over his head and still being among the living, he didn’t know how to act. And he didn’t dare believe that he could have a future. Luckily, I had found something to live for: climbing. The Belgian Willems has always lived at the expense of a hereditary disease, cystic fibrosis, a condition that caused him to force a life doomed to be short. Recently Willems visited the Siurana climbing festival in Catalonia and also Barcelona, where he presented a documentary film that can be seen on his YouTube channel, which he uses to finance his life.
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His illness causes a variety of problems in the lungs and also in the gastrointestinal tract: “All this leads to mucus that clogs the airways, which leads to a lot of breathing difficulties and of course also leads to not being able to do sports, in addition “This is due to the repeated infections they suffer from,” explains Lieven Dupont, the pulmonologist who has treated Willems in recent years. The lack of horizons plunged the Belgian climber into a certain form of abandonment. Furthermore, his sister, barely two years older than him, was born with the same disease and he could see in her his immediate future, his decline. The discovery of climbing at the age of 18 changed his life, it gave him an unknown joy, an immediate pleasure that did not require waiting to be consumed… and not having to wait is a gift when time is lacking. His passion for climbing made him determined to return to medical therapy: breathing exercises, exercises to relieve mucus formation, medication around the clock… his therapy became his profession. Urgent. Climbing as a way of life.
When you get cystic fibrosis you can’t cool down, you can’t travel, you can’t exercise… “The Belgian healthcare system is effective, but here I felt like I was trapped in a gilded cage. I had to test how far I could go with my illness because I felt that I could do many things that benefited my health,” explains Willems. This led him to climb cold mountains in the Alps, El Capitan in Yosemite, or search for hot rocks in the Mediterranean. That’s how he discovered Sardinia, where a paradise of good weather, clean air for his battered lungs and rocks awaited him to explore. He immediately insisted on equipping virgin walls and giving away new routes for the community, and thus a route difficult enough to become his project was born, a new motivation to continue fighting. At the same time, he decided to establish his permanent residence there, far from the Belgian cities, where he met other children who had already died and had the same illness.
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He also overcame cancer at the age of 15. But in his mid-thirties he became ill with another illness: there was also a tumor the size of his heart. It took him months to overcome the procedure and when he returned, the route called “Still Alive” and a difficulty level of 8c was waiting for him. The vast majority of climbers never approach this difficulty. Doctors assured him that he would never return to his pre-surgery level, but Willems found it “fun” to contradict their predictions, and so he began a long recovery process with the help of physical therapists and trainers. At this point, his lung capacity was at 25%: “It’s like living with a pillow in your mouth,” he says ironically. With enormous work, he managed to achieve 52%: “It’s like living with half a pillow in your mouth,” he emphasizes. At the same time, he tried to stop projecting himself into the future and instead try to enjoy the present and only the present. During the months of testing the route, his sister died at the age of 32. “Now I live my life for both of us and am determined to show that this disease can be beaten… and if I can motivate others who suffer from my disease, the effort will have been worth it,” he explains.
It’s a blind fight. Sometimes he hangs in the middle of climbing and spits blood. He sees his end near. Then he manages to recover. Experience a roller coaster ride of conflicting emotions. Medicine has found certain keys that make it possible to increase the life expectancy of cystic fibrosis patients up to 50 years, but Willems does not want to limit himself to going through life without any glory other than the conscientious implementation of his therapy: He wants to lead a fulfilling life. He wants his example to be spread among boys and girls who are aware of an illness that makes everyday gestures difficult and isolates them. The fact of living in the town of Ulassai (Sardinia), as sparsely populated as it is rich in pure air, allowed him to escape the threat of Covid-19, an infection that would almost certainly have killed him. There alone he dedicated himself to unpaid work and equipped more than 100 sport climbing routes: “I wanted to give back to the world of climbing everything it had given me,” he explains simply. After months of trying, he managed to chain his 8c… and like all climbers, he began to dream: “Maybe I can try a 9a.”
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