When life throws Cindy Abbott a curveball, she swings at it with all she's got.
"You just keep living life, you know?" the 55-year-old Iditarod rookie says.
Abbott, a professor of health science at California State-Fullerton, has endured her share of challenges. She lives with a rare disease that has caused blindness in her left eye, and she is fighting to keep the same thing happening to the other eye.
She also lives with the determination to become the first woman in the world to finish the Iditarod and summit Mount Everest.
Her first Iditarod brought her literally to her knees. She scratched in Kaltag, about 350 miles short of the finish line in Nome, with a broken pelvis that made it nearly impossible for her to walk.
"I thought it was a muscle tear, a groin pull," she recalled. "I thought, 'Whatever, a little pain isn't going to keep me from finishing the Iditarod.' ''
It turned out her pelvis was fractured in two places -- an injury she thinks she suffered during a pre-Iditarod training run.
The closer Abbott got to Nome, the worse things got. By the time she reached the Eagle Island checkpoint on the Yukon River, she could hardly walk.
"I did all my dog chores on my hands and knees," she said.
Once she reached Kaltag, she surrendered.
"I was literally caving in on myself," she said. "My body couldn't hold itself anymore."
The injury was so serious that she was put on a plane headed to Anchorage. It broke her heart to say goodbye to her dogs, all puppies owned by four-time Iditarod champion Lance Mackey. Knowing it was the end of the trail for her and her team, she took out a banner from her sled that read "National Organization of Rare Disorders" and laid it on the snow in front of her team.
The banner was her personal Burled Arch.
Abbott, who lives in Fullterton with her husband and daughter, suffers from a rare disease called Wegener's granulomatosis, a rare, incurable, life-threatening disease that inflames blood vessels. She takes a dozen pills a day to combat the disease, she said.
The condition didn't keep her off Everest, the world's tallest mountain. Abbott was inspired to climb the 29,029-foot peak after watching a documentary called "Everest: Beyond the Limit." When the show finished, Abbott turned to her husband and said, "I think I need to go do that."
And so at age 48, she contacted a high-altitude Everest guide.
Five months later, she lost vision in her left eye. Four months after that, she traveled to Argentina to climb Mount Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in the Americas.
At 20,000 feet, almost 3,000 feet from the summit, Abbott and her team had to abort their summit attempt because of high winds. On the way down, at about 19,000 feet, Abbott tripped, fell and broke her leg. She hiked five hours down to base camp and was flown off the mountain the next day.
She was not deterred. If anything, she was more motivated than ever. She didn't know how long her vision would last. In the summer of 2009, she climbed two major peaks in preparation for Everest: Mount Rainier in Washington and Mount Elbrus in Russia.
Doctors were hardly thrilled to hear about Abbott's Everest aspirations, but Abbott reassured them she would take life on the mountain "10 feet at a time." After spending 54 days on the mountain, Abbott summited in May 2010 while holding her "National Organization of Rare Disorders" banner.
This week she is using her "10 feet at a time" mantra to tackle the Iditarod, a race in which mushers don't shed their rookie status until they make it to Nome.
"To me, mushing and mountain climbing are one of the same," Abbott said. "It's the speed that's different. On the mountain, I would worry about the 10 feet in front of me. How am I going to get across that crevasse, or up that ice wall?
"With the trail, it's the same thing, but it might be 100 feet instead. You run from checkpoint to checkpoint and that's what you think about. It's very similar as far as the psychological approach to it."
Though she thought she would never say it, Abbott admitted that long-distance sled dog racing has been more challenging than climbing the world's tallest mountain.
"On Everest, I just had to worry about me," she explained. "But with the Iditarod, my focus is solely on the dogs. If it's not good for them, then it's not good for me. We're a team."
At Saturday's ceremonial start in downtown Anchorage, Abbott said she believes all signs point to reaching Nome. She is running the A team of Iditarod veteran Vern Halter.
"And I don't have any broken bones," she said.
By KEVIN KLOTT
Daily News correspondent