For over a decade, Michael Savino has been hit with tragedy after tragedy — each a life-changing battle in its own right.

In 2011, his New Jersey home was destroyed in Hurricane Irene and then cancer took his mother the following year. In succession, his wife underwent three brain surgeries, his father was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, his dog died, and his own health declined due to the aggressive fibromatosis that invaded the muscles, bones and lung on the left side of his body.

Between treatments and hardships, the Frederick County resident worked tirelessly starting up his own website design business, Nexus Box™.

Asked how he managed to do it all at once, he replied: “Just one foot forward, I guess. There wasn’t really a choice.”

Savino became too weak to walk across his yard, doctors told him his paralyzed arm would never fully work again and his childhood dream of trekking Mount Everest seemed to grow smaller and less likely by the day.

Remission came in December 2022 — a light at the end of the tunnel. Savino’s strength returned slowly, too, and he fulfilled his promise of joining karate with his 9-year-old son, as well as began preparations for the trip of a lifetime.

“You never know what’s going to happen tomorrow, so it was like, ‘Hey, I’m feeling good. Let’s just kind of do it,’” Savino said, reflecting on why he booked his flights to the Himalayas last summer.

On April 20, 41-year-old Savino returned home from a trip in which he hiked about 70 miles and nearly 18,000 feet total elevation, all while carrying a 30-pound backpack, to the Mount Everest Base Camp.

The journey did not come without hurdles of its own, as he passed many hikers who turned back, cried on the side of a mountain or passed out due to severe altitude sickness. Even his porter — the man he hired to help carry gear who had made the journey numerous times — turned around from altitude sickness and he had to find another.

At one point, he spent a full day resting while nauseous and dizzy from altitude sickness, and seriously contemplated quitting.

But his life’s difficulties had prepared him for this. The walk up and down the Himalayas was nothing compared to his mother’s death, his wife’s surgeries, his father’s cancer, his own cancer and losing everything in a hurricane years ago.

“My father had esophageal cancer and just had his esophagus ripped out of him a little over a year ago. I’m like, ‘It’s not as bad as that. I can just take another step up,’” Savino said, explaining how putting his life in perspective helped him make the climb.

He would like to go back one day to hike to Mount Everest’s summit. But first, he will need “a lot more training,” as well as funding, since it costs about $100,000 for the permits, gear and other necessities to climb the famous mountain, he said.

Savino went to Nepal alone and met up with his guide, Homnath Bhatta, upon arrival. The two became good friends due to all the time they spent hiking together and Bhatta, a local, took the time to show him the full Nepal experience, complete with a home cooked meal, instead of just the typical touristy stops.

On the trek itself, Savino found himself frequently in awe of the sights to see — the Blue Ridge Mountains seeming tiny in comparison. Photos don’t do the views justice, he said, though he did take many.

“Seeing where we came from one day to get to another valley is crazy,” Savino said. “We walked that distance and things were so small when you looked back at them. Like, that’s where we came from?”

The small business owner recalled traveling across narrow metal wire bridges, many of which were not regularly cared for and had missing slats and rusted barbed wire. While crossing one, suspended hundreds of feet above a rocky ravine, he was stuck behind a herd of 10 yaks and two tourists, forced to wait for each of them before he could plant his feet on solid ground again.

Even before Savino reached the location where the hike began, he faced intimidating experiences.

For one of his flights, he had to fly out of Lukla Airport, which is often regarded as the world’s most dangerous airport due to its short runway, which is on a mountainous incline.

Takeoff was rough and the flight itself was turbulent with “the back end of the plane swinging back and forth” and many getting sick. But it did not bother Savino much, as he called it “a roller coaster through the Himalayas.”

“Even in the little moments when they were kind of scary, it was like, ‘I’m here. I can’t go back, so I’ve got to go forward. At least I’ll have something to talk about tomorrow.’”

And many of the lessons and reflections the Frederick County man gleaned from his adventure are applicable to the decade of hardship he was forced to confront — just one step at a time.

Savino wants to dedicate the trip to anyone who has cancer, hoping to demonstrate that there is hope and that plans can be made for the future.

“You can turn something negative into a positive,” Savino said confidently.

To donate to a cancer research fund, Savino recommends the Desmoid Tumor Research Foundation, which is an organization that supported him greatly through his diagnosis, treatments and eventual recovery. More information is available at dtrf.org.