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About Why to Climb My Story Aims Participate Donate Your Challenge 41 Peaks Research Team Artificial Kidney Connect Contact

CLIMB AGAINST TIME

For a future free from dialysis

Why?

To end the suffering of dialysis patients. Dialysis technology has many disadvantages. Patients with kidney failure awaiting transplantation spend often years hooked to a machine with suboptimal filtration capacity, and many of them die waiting. We want to change this by creating an artificial implantable kidney.

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Aims

To raise funds for revolutionary technologies that will end dialysis. To be the voice to patients who suffer quietly and immensely. Who must struggle constantly uphill to survive. To symbolise this struggle, we will climb!

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Participate

Join us in the Climb Against Time! Donate to the cause. Partner up, or even set up your own challenge. You can run, walk, hike, cycle or climb. Any challenge counts!

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MY STORY

I am a patient, a scientist and a climber.

My kidneys were failing silently in the summer of 2022 as I was climbing the high peaks of the Alps. Unknowingly, I may have been the only person to climb a 4000m peak, Piz Bernina, with severe kidney failure. Yet that day’s triumph turned to night’s agony, as relentless cramps seized my body.

Two months later, my reality shifted. I was on dialysis, tethered to a machine every night just to survive. I was an organism that could not get rid of its waste, I felt inhuman. I wanted to drink yet I could not, for I couldn't urinate. Fatigue, cramps, headaches and nausea, these were my everyday companions. Yet all physical symptoms paled in comparison to my fear of inadequacy, of uncertainty. How was I to be a father? A lover?

It was a limbo—a fragile, exhausting existence I never want to experience again.

So, I took up the fight. Three weeks after receiving a life-restoring transplant, I began working on the Artificial Kidney at the University Hospital in Utrecht. My sole purpose is to end dialysis, to restore the colours of life. Dialysis is degenerative and strips people of their strength and dignity. We must get people off it as quickly as possible and ensure no one ever needs it again.

The Climb Against Time was inspired by the National Donor Monument in the Netherlands. Two weeks after my transplant, I stumbled upon it by chance. The monument, called 'The Climb,' not only perfectly captured the uphill struggle of every patient fighting to reclaim their life, but also the magic of transplantation.

We need to build a bridge without dialysis to that magic.

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Donor Monument

The Donor Monument so named ‘The Climb’

Why to Climb

To restore lives

BOUND TO THE MACHINE:

Kidney failure means both kidneys have failed. There are then only three options; kidney transplantation, dialysis or death.

While transplantation is the gold standard for treatment, due to shortage of donor organs, 300,000 people in Europe alone must survive on dialysis.

Dilaysis treatment is exhausting. Half the week is spent in the hospital, bound to the machine. The other half recovering from the rapid changes in blood caused by the treatment.

DIALYSIS IS NOT ENOUGH:

Yet despite this, dialysis only constitutes 5-15% of kidney function. This is because a dialysis machine unlike the kidneys, does not filter continuously.

Due to insufficient filtration, people suffer from fluid overload, cardio-vascular and neural degeneration. Strict fluid and dietary restrictions are often required just to get by.

DEGENERATIVE:

Dialysis is hugely degenerative, with the five-year survival rate at 50%. So, many people die quietly while waiting for a transplant. During this time, people become physically and psychologically drained, and socially isolated.

Many feel incomplete, unable to satisfy their emotional and social roles

We are in a Climb Against Time, as each passing day another person becomes tethered to a machine.

With an artificial kidney we aim to do much better.

Let's change this together!

AIMS

DISRUPT

To disrupt the status quo of dialysis which has remained stagnant for 80 years. It costs $110 billion annually and benefits a few companies. Perversely, patients are seen as customers.

INNOVATE

We need to use this campaign to raise funds for innovations that will end dialysis, such as (bio)artificial kidneys. Current funding mechanisms are far too slow.

Many efforts focus on improving dialysis — a concept that is contradictory.

The Research Team The Artificial Kidney

INFORM

Much of this current state is not known by the public nor the policy makers. So, we must use the drama and urgency of the Climb Against Time to highlight it.

The event is a call to action, to shine light on a disease that has robbed people of their human dignity.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

Donate Icon

Donate

Your contributions bring us closer to ending dialysis and funding innovative solutions.

 Join My Climb Icon

Climb with me

Be my rope-mate. I will climb 41 peaks above 4000 m via technical routes.

 Your Own Challenge Icon

Your own challenge

Climb, hike, run, or walk. Any challenge makes you part of this event. Get your family and friends to sponsor you.

 Invite Others Icon

Invite others

Inspire your family and friends to join the cause. Share and grow this community.

The Climb Against Time challenge will start on the 15th of May 2025 and run all the way through summer until October 15th 2025.

Donations

Donations can be made from anywhere in the world. With your donation you can support the Climb Against Time campaign in several ways.

You can support the whole team. Or you can support a specific participant on their challange

You can also make a pledge. Example of a pledge is giving x amount for each peak climed, or meter elevation hiked, there are infinite possibilities! If you want to make a pledge please contact us and we will register it on the website.

Donation platform

All donations are for the artificial kidney project at the University Medical Hospital in Utrecht, through the hospital’s charity, The Friends of UMC Utrecht.

The funds will then be given to research projects in UMC Utrecht which aim to replace dialysis with new and better solutions.

If you have a question or a pledge please contact us directly.

Click below and donate. Bank transfer, credit/debit card transactions are all supported.

Donate

Your Own Challenge

Are you an alpinist, climber, runner, walker, or hiker? Then you know the meaning of struggle. Let’s climb together to end dialysis!

You can do so on your own or along with your friends. If you can’t find a partner, we can try to get you in touch with other participants using the profile pages (coming soon!). The more people you invite and challange, the more impact we can have!

Want to participate? Or have questions? Here is the Whatsapp community.

Family hiking together

Any challenge counts, however big or small!

All challenges are personal. Rise to your own and raise funds! Share your plan and your progress with your friends and family and get as many sponsors as you can! The donations can be then delivered as described here .

Climbers on a mountain

Steps to Join:

  • Go to Friends of UMC Utrecht .
  • Click on “Add a team member” and fill out your profile.
  • Specify the challenge you plan to do and who you plan to partner with. Every participant should have their own profile. If you don't know exactly what you will be doing yet, don't worry! You can just sign up with your intent and approximately what you have in mind.
  • Share your challenge with your family, friends, colleagues. Ask them to sponsor you and start raising funds for a future without dialysis!

15 May

–

15 Oct

2025

This period marks the start and end of the alpine season. During this time, you can climb, run, walk, or hike and raise money for the cause.

Sign Up!

41 Peaks

4000+ m

One Season

Let’s climb together. I have challenged myself to climb 41 peaks above 4000m through technical routes (alpine grades AD-TD). I will do this in an Alpine season, starting 15 May 2025, ending with the last peak on October 15th, 2025. I am looking for partners!

A challenge is always relative to the individual. For me, it is a serious undertaking with high risk but appropriate difficulty for my experience level. I am taking this on not only because I believe the cause is worth fighting for, but also because climbing has become symbolic to me.

I find the jagged spires and the snowy lines heading up to the wild blue yonder deeply inspiring. My history with these mountains, through both sickness and health, means that my challenge can be in no other theater than that of the high Alps.

Monte Rosa

Monte Rosa: Via Brioschi

Matterhorn

Matterhorn: Cresta del Leone

Mont Blanc

Mont Blanc: Frontier Ridge

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Contact

Do you have more questions about how to donate, how to participate, the research, or about dialysis and kidney disease? Would you like to help us out in other ways, for instance organization and outreach? Or do you have your own story to tell? We’d love to hear from you! Use the form below to send us a message.

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