DeKALB – After Ohio native Sean Swarner survived cancer, he decided to climb Mount Everest. Since then, he has been saying there’s hope everywhere and miracles exist up and down every mountain.

At the age of 13, Swarner was diagnosed with advanced stage four Hodgkin lymphoma and was given a few months to live. After being in remission for about a year, he was diagnosed with a second cancer. Swarner lost function in his right lung as a result of medically induced coma that he was in for a year of his life.

“My story is about helping other people, because what I’ve done isn’t really relatable,” he said. “What is relatable are the struggles that I went through. ... Everybody has struggles in life, everybody has issues they have to overcome and frustrations they have on a daily basis. ... And knowing that you can get through those struggles, you can get help from other people and your support group like the Y and as a whole, you can collectively do anything you want.”

Eventually, Swarner went to college and decided to climb Mount Everest. The adventure took him a month and a half and after summiting the Earth’s highest mountain, he became the first cancer survivor to climb it.

On Thursday evening, Swarner shared his story with more than 250 people at the YMCA Community Awards Dinner titled, “Be Inspired,” that took place at Faranda’s Banquet Center at 302 Grove St. in DeKalb.

The YMCA Community Awards Dinner is in its second year and was created as a fundraiser for the YMCA. The purpose of the event is to create awareness about the mission of the organization as well as its community and outreach programs, said Debbie Madeley, development director at Kishwaukee Family YMCA.

“We have a truly inspiring community in DeKalb County and it’s really important to be able to lift up and highlight the people who are really working hard every day to make a difference,” she said.

The three awards were presented at the event, Outstanding Youth Award that went to Sycamore High School senior Andrew McComb, Outstanding Community Leader Award to Sheryl Nakonechny, and Outstanding Business Award to Ideal Industries.

Keith Foster, board president for Kishwaukee Family YMCA said the event was also meant to highlight some of the benefits that YMCA offers to the community and encourage people to support it.

“Amazingly, the Y receives support from a lot of people,” he said. “People think of the Y as a swimming gym, [but] the Y is not a swimming gym, the Y is about strengthening families, making people more healthy. The Y is so much more than that we want everyone who is a part of the Y family to know that.”

Throughout his climb, Swarner said he often felt like giving up, but was able to stay on track by constantly motivating himself. along the way, he saw stars, otherworldly sunsets and even the curvature of the Earth. Once at the top of the mountain, he let the tears run free.

Swarner describes himself as a speaker, climber, author. He now travels around the country and world to share his story and advocate for life and good choices.

“Things can always be worse,” he said. “There’s inspiration in every choice you make. Everybody has struggles. You can conquer those struggles and in the end, we should all live a life that matters.”