Most cyclists train for the length of the The Dempsey Challenge. Heidi Conn trains for the hill at the four-mile mark. 

“If it’s flat, I can go forever,” Conn of Turner said. “I struggle on the hills.” 

The drawn-out hill on Penley Corner Road in Auburn challenges many of the riders. “If I can have a push or two up that hill, the rest of it will be fine.”

Conn’s challenge is a recent one. 

Conn lives to be active, so the Dempsey ride should come naturally. “My husband used to say I did more before I left for school in the morning than most people do in a weekend,” said the guidance counselor at Edward Little High School in Auburn. 

Conn and her husband, Doug, spent weekends skiing, camping, and hiking sections of the Appalachian Trail with their two children. “We were a really big water sports family,” said Conn, who sent videos of herself riding motorcycles and jumping from an 80 foot cliff into Sebago Lake to the TV show “Survivor.”

She applied to star on the reality show seven times. She was called in twice for an interview.  

“I encourage my kids to live on the edge and they do,” Conn said. “They should because you never know what’s going to happen.”

Conn can no longer hike, ski or jump as she once did. 

On March 24, 2011, Conn went to the hospital with a bad headache. The following day, she was whisked away to the emergency room. Bleeding in her spinal column, caused by her heart medication Coumadin, resulted in damage to her spinal cord. “My spine choked on blood is the easiest way to put it,” said Conn. 

“I walked into ER and haven’t walked since.”

Conn is paralyzed from her chest down. “It’s horrible,” she said.

Conn spent the spring of 2011 at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital undergoing intense physical therapy. Spaulding is where many of the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing went for treatment, she said. 

“They had a hand cycle at Spaulding,” Conn said. “It was the first time I had a smile on my face.”

Conn has found that the tricycle powered by her arms is a way she can stay connected to the outdoors.

“What I miss the most is not being able to be on the trails, to put my feet on the ground and not be able to feel it.” 

“I miss that connection with the Earth.”

“I used to say the secret to not aging is to keep the wind in your face and your goggles on,” said Conn. “The closest I can come to that is a hand cycle.”

Conn regularly rides from her home in Turner down to Lake Auburn and back.

“I fly down hills because I have so much rubber on the road,” Conn said with a smile.  

“Every now and then we will do a leg of the Eastern Trail and that is wonderful,” Conn said, while describing the former railroad bed in Southern Maine that has been paved for cycling.

“That’s as close as I can feel to hiking in the woods,” Conn said about the ET trails. 

Conn has not given up hope, but the further she gets from the time of paralysis, the more unlikely she will ever hike again. 

“For the first two years, I was going to walk again, but I’m coming up on my third year and I have a feeling this is a lifestyle that will be mine for a very long time.”

“It has to turn into a place of acceptance,” she said. “I do not want to be this bitter old woman that is mad at the world. That is not who I am.”

Friends and family keep Conn moving forward.

“My family is so wonderful,” Conn said. “I know I can still be a grandmother. I’m not gonna be able to teach my grandkids how to ski. I’m not gonna be able to bring them up Streaked Mountain. But no one focuses on that at all. They are just really glad that I am around.”

“What was a godsend was I had so many friends visit me in the hospital,” Conn said.

Those same friends started “Heidi Help,” a Facebook page designed to give friends updates on the twists and turns that Conn’s life is taking. 

“When hurdles or successes come into my life, I make a note on Heidi Help and read what people say,” Conn said. “I get so much encouragement from people’s responses … It’s loving, it’s spiritual, It’s such a wonderful connected feeling.”

Her husband, Doug, retired from his job as athletic director at Leavitt Area High School to be available when Conn needs help and the Leavitt football coach’s father spearheaded the house projects that needed to be done to accommodate Conn’s wheelchair. Volunteers with Maine Adaptive Sports & Recreation have helped Conn ski, bike and kayak and staff at EL has been “unbelievable to work with.”

“The support is just amazing,” Conn said.

Conn did not waste time getting back to work. She was paralyzed in March and returned to EL at the start of the next school year. 

“Working was the only thing I could conceive myself doing. I could not get into my house, but knew I could get into Edward Little. I knew I could get to my desk and to my computer,” Conn said. “Work was the only thing in my life that I could envision being able to continue being successful at. Nothing else,” she said. 

It was a school colleague, Rebecca Hefty, who suggested Conn give the The Dempsey Challenge a go. 

“I have to get up all those hills,” was Conn’s response. 

“PT Red Eddies,” a team of 29 students and staff was formed shortly after. They have raised over $5,000 for The Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope & Healing. They will bike the 10 mile course on Oct. 13. 

“Doug and I have always followed Patrick’s career,” Conn said. Dempsey grew up in nearby Buckfield and attended a Valentine’s Day fundraising dance for the Leavitt football team when he was in the fifth grade. 

Conn was a Leavitt physical education teacher at the time and attended as well. “I danced with him,” a smiling Conn said. “In that little church down there.”