Hi! We are Katie and Karen, a mother-daughter duo who are so excited to join the Mt. Washington team this year. Jimmy Robinson, Katie’s dad and Karen’s husband, was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma early in 2015 and received his stem cell transplant that summer. 2015 was also the year Katie decided to finally put thoughts into actions and began her long (and still on-going) path toward changing careers and attending medical school. Spending those long days in the hospital with her parents is what finally gave her the impetus to find meaning in her career. In July of 2019, Katie began medical school at Emory University School of Medicine at 31 years old. The white coat ceremony, symbolizing the student’s transition into a lifetime of pursuit of medical knowledge, was a very special moment for our family in the same place that Jimmy had been treated four years before.

Katie found out about Moving Mountains for Multiple Myeloma through the Laugh for Life: Multiple Myeloma fundraising event in New York City. As fate would have it, she was not attending the event as a guest, but as a vendor helping with the silent auction. When she heard the stories of participants who had hiked on past teams, Katie knew she had to figure out how to get involved. And here we are, a few years later, finally a part of the team! Both Katie and Karen enjoy hiking and have had some wonderful experiences hiking in California, Canada, Maine, New York, and Colorado to name a few. We both ended up on a surprise, ill-prepared 13-mile hike in Norway, going the opposite direction of a trail half-marathon stampede of runners – scary in the moment; but in hindsight, it makes for quite the story! We are excited to take on Mt. Washington… with much more preparation this time around! Karen and Jimmy visited Mt. Washington last year for the first time and Karen is excited to return for such an meaningful cause.

The timing of the Mt. Washington hike is special to us because it marks Jimmy’s 5th “second birthday” and we feel so lucky to be able to honor him in this way. We can’t wait to meet the rest of the team and share this experience together.