Relative Something

Sunday, 12 April, turned out to be a milestone day for me. In the middle of the night of sleeping in Lhakpa’s lodge, I woke to find my nose stuffed up and as I lay, trying to fall back asleep breathing through my mouth, I realized I was short of breath even while resting. My cough was still persisting and then I became aware of a rattling in my lungs when I exhaled. I laughed to myself over having just reread a brochure from Mountain Travel on Acute Mountain Sickness before we went to sleep. I was reviewing the recommended procedures to help Gary make a decision related to how poorly he was feeling. Suddenly, the words all spoke to me.

“…extreme fatigue, and loss of appetite. Some people become breathless at rest… Never ascend with any symptoms of AMS !”

I’m afraid my mind paid a little too much attention to what I was reading to him. The recommended procedure when symptoms occur is to stay at that altitude until you feel better. A lot of thoughts went through my mind that night. We had already used one contingency day right away at the beginning of the trip because it took two days to get our flight to Lukla. Gary was wanting to descend to see if he would feel better. If I ignore my symptoms and go up, I risk needing helicopter evacuation. I calmed myself, made a decision to talk with Jim in the morning and was able to get back to sleep.

When I woke again at dawn, I discovered that smoke from the wood stove in the lodge was hanging pretty thick in the indoor air. I really needed to get outside. I also noticed, my shortness of breath did not go away. Gary stated, right away when he awoke, that he would not continue going up with the group. It helped me identify what I would do. As emotional a decision I was about to make, it was an easy one for the logical reasons I knew. When I checked with Jim, it was comforting to have him recognize signs and quickly agree with my plan to not go higher and thus accompany Gary in a descent. We would be splitting from the group this day and heading down in elevation as they continue going up. Separating from them was the hardest part of the whole decision.

We were assigned the younger Lhakpa as our Sherpa guide and two porters to carry gear. We hiked for a short amount of time down to a lodge at Phortse Thanga where they had a room for us but we both preferred the tent. As soon as it was up we both crashed and slept most of the day. Around 5 p.m. Lhakpa checked on us and we agreed to go in to the lodge for some soup. I forced down some tomato noodle. We will need to buy our food and water while separated from the group and I make a point to be careful about my hydration since I am eating so little and water is not as available as when the Sherpas were filling our bottles morning and night.

Even though my persistent cough was an ongoing annoyance, my breathing struggles relaxed and I was feeling well enough, especially after the long nap, to be able to completely enjoy myself again. Unfortunately, Gary wasn’t experiencing anything resembling improvement.

We would continue our descent the following day.