Posts Tagged ‘Everest 2009’
Injury Report and General Update
August 31st, 2009
At long last I’ve finished a report on what happened to me on Mount Everest. You can read the report here. If you have any corrections please contact me at info@TheAltitudeExperience.com and I’ll revise the document as needed.
I’m now nearly 3 weeks out from surgery. I had all 60+ stitches removed last Thursday. It wasn’t fun but now I can wear shoes and socks for the first time in three months. This helps with walking considerably. I’m wearing some lovely Isotoner gloves on my hands to help reduce fluid retention. My knuckles are still swollen and my fingers are very weak; my forearm muscles have disappeared over the months. So I spend a lot of time flexing my fingers and working to get my range of motion back. My thumbs did not undergo surgery but they still have scabs at the tips.
I’m doing a lot of things very slowly. Between the shortened fingers and the gloves I really have to think about what I’m doing. I’m back on the exercise bike and will be doing as much non-impact aerobic activity as I can to get my general level of fitness to where I can put in a full day’s work.
I’m not going to post any photos of my hands and feet; I’d rather deal with my injuries in terms of what I can do rather than how I look. While I will occasionally mention a significant milestone in my recovery, this pretty much ends my 2009 Everest expedition account. I thank you all for your wonderful support and best wishes over the past few months.
Here’s a photo of me with Bernice Notenboom and Walter Laserer in Kathmandu. They found me at nearly 8400m and took precious time out of their ascent to care for me, for which I will always be grateful. See my report for a full listing of those who helped me.
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Five days out
August 17th, 2009
Still in the hospital. Healing ok, but the chance of infection is too high to take any risks. Every day the dr squeezes the digit tips to expel any fluid containing infectious critters; today, no fluid! I’m given morphine and Versed, which send me to la-la land for a few hours. The biggest problem right now is some swelling that prevents urination so I have to relearn how to pee tomorrow. Otherwise I watch TV. I’m checking email but don’t be surprised if I don’t respond to your emails for a while.
Thanks again for your support. Surgery went as well as could be expected.
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American Idiot
June 24th, 2009
This is the title of a song by the band Green Day that was popular a few years back. It’s also used for me now, as in “Did you hear about the American idiot who got frostbite on Mount Everest? Why do they let people like that on the mountain…”
While I’m upset about the frostbite (who wouldn’t be), I’m more upset with myself for making the mistakes that led to the frostbite. Unfortunately I recall almost nothing that happened between 6 PM and midnight but I shouldn’t have been up there at 6 PM.
I’m working on my timeline of events right now but for the moment you’ll just have to be patient until it is both complete and accurate. The short version is that I screwed up, got lucky, and made it down. There’s a long list of people who helped me (and continue to help); I will acknowledge them publicly when I’m sure the list is complete.
Frostbite update: the fingers and toes continue to ‘mature’. The nose is mostly healed though a scab continues to fall off and reform. There has been surprisingly little pain and I have yet to take a prescription painkiller. I am taking fairly high doses of ibuprofen and another prescription medication. These two together have been effective so far.
Some fingers and toes have clearly declared their intentions, while others are apparently still deciding what to keep and what to shed. Again, I should have very good function after the surgery. Even though I can’t use my fingertips and have bandages on my hands, I replaced the hard drive in my laptop this weekend without any help. I’m doing an hour a day on the recumbent exercise bike and a variety of exercises and stretches to get back into shape. After I heal from the surgery I should be able to resume virtually all of my normal activities. Probably no ice climbing or skiing this winter, though, as I’ll be quite sensitive to the cold.
I’m still wearing my glove bandages on the hands and socklike bandages on my feet. These bandages aren’t particularly comfortable in our hot, sticky weather.
My surgery will take place on August 11. I’ll be in the hospital a few days, and then laid up at home for while. I should be in good enough shape to start classes on September 8.
The rest of my gear arrived from Nepal. Thanks to Kedar from Explore Himalaya for dealing with this.
Photos: one photo shows the summit, with a statue of Buddha in the box. The other is a picture of me (though it’s hard to tell) with the summit reflected in my glasses. There’s also a lo-res video where you can see the wind blowing (1 MB). You guess how fast. Click the photos for larger versions.
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Were you there? Contact me (sticky)
June 8th, 2009
If you were on above the South Col on Everest on May 22-23 and had contact with me, could you please send me an email at everest09[AT]mfarris.net?
I want to put together a timeline of my movements and figure out who helped me during my descent. My memory is very spotty and unreliable and I want to acknowledge all assistance that I received.
Thanks.
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Natural nose enhancement
June 8th, 2009
I got up this morning, looked in the mirror, and to my surprise my black nose scab had fallen off, revealing a red but rebuilt nose tip underneath. So no nose surgery and I look more like a normal clown.
I’m watching a lot of tv and have seen about 23,674 commercials for ‘natural male enhancement.’ I wonder if it works on fingers and toes?
Nothing much else to report–no serious pain, lots of dressing changes. I’m doing exercises to stretch my hands and feet back out. Otherwise, I wait for my body to heal. And watch more tv.
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Home at last
June 4th, 2009
I got home yesterday. As usual, jet lag is whacking me hard. I go to my first doctor appointment tomorrow.
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My status
May 30th, 2009
Finally I have a chance to get my own update posted. It will be brief, because I’m pecking this out with a toothbrush.
A quick summary: after reaching the summit at about 1:30pm on the 22nd, I descended. During the descent, I screwed up and didn’t reach the South Col until dawn the next day. Phurbu Tashi, HimEx sidar, took me to his tent and gave me oxygen and fluids. Later that day I descended to C2 and the next day to BC.
I hope to leave Kathmandu in a day or two. My frostbite is stable. My hands and feet are wrapped for protection, making life quite difficult. I’ll likely lose some bits of a few fingers and toes, but nothing major. I will be able to do all my normal activities after I heal. My nose is black and for a while I looked like a very evil clown.
After I get home I’ll begin the task of figuring out exactly how I screwed up. I’ll be contacting those folks who saw me that night for their recollections. Until, then, thanks to all of you. I’m a lucky guy.
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Summit Reached
May 23rd, 2009
Mike called from Camp IV to say he reached the summit at 1:30 p.m. on 5/22. His oxygen delivery wasn’t working correctly so it took him longer than expected to reach the summit. He was alone on the summit and as he came down by himself he missed a turn and was out all night [edit: I thought I might have been off route, but I wasn't]. As a consequence he has some frostbite. Sherpas will help him get back to base camp. He will finally get to remove his boots once he reaches the medical tent and they can determine how much damage there is from the frost bite. As this point it is important for him to descend as soon as possible.
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Base Camp tomorrow
April 7th, 2009
Just a quick post to let you know that we’re arriving in BC tomorrow (4/8). Our baggage is a couple of days behind us due to bad flying weather, so I won’t be able to send anything else for a few days. We’ve had snow and thunder and lightning the past two afternoons. I had chicken corden bleu for dinner last night, not bad for 5000 meters! And I’m in an internet cafe at 5200 meters sending this-quite remarkable.
Many people on the trail, and many Well Known Climbers around. We make the transition to tents tomorrow, which might be nice as the lodge bedrooms are really cold!
More in a few days.
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On the trail
April 2nd, 2009
I’m sitting in a cyber cafe in Namche Bazar, capital of the Solu Khumbu region of Nepal and the center of Sherpa culture. The culture that I can see, however, is lodges, shops, internet cafes, bakeries, and all the other trappings of western society. These people are very, very smart.
We flew to Lukla on Tuesday, March 31. The airstrip is now paved, though it’s like landing on an aircraft carrier with the deck pitched upwards at 30 degrees and with a rock wall at the end. Quite sporty, and lots of air traffic to boot.
There are jillions of trekkers/climbers, and there are about twice as many in October! I won’t whine about crowds, though, as I knew what to expect. But it is a bit like rush hour (though you usually don’t dodge yaks at home). We’ve walked two days and did a rest day today (which involved gaining 300m and getting our first view of the Big E).
There are four of us westerners traveling with two Sherpas. They handle all the logistics. Our biggest job is deciding what to order at meals, since we eat in lodges and not in a trekking kitchen.
We are scheduled to arrive in Base Camp on April 8. You likely won’t here from me until then. Oh, and if you check Explorer’s Web, you find out that I’m the Base Camp manager for Phil’s team. Feel free to email them to correct their mistake. I haven’t given them permission to use my stuff, so the error might be understandable.
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