Altitude
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One
major concern of
high altitude is Acute Mountain Sickness: the brain swells or the lungs
fill
with fluid, and suddenly staying alive depends on descending quickly. This
crisis is usually preceded by symptoms:
headache, vomiting, etc.
Because we
ascended slowly, most of us did not experience any
of these symptoms, and stayed well away from danger. |
Trekker Being Evacuated
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This
does not mean
we were not affected by the altitude.
The most annoying part of
being at altitude was "Periodic
Breathing".
This happens while
sleeping, and results in suddenly awakening gasping for air. The
sleeping body simply does not breathe
rapidly enough to keep the proper level of oxygen in the blood. Some
of us did not experience this effect,
and some did but did not mind it, but I found it really unpleasant and
very
disruptive.
The good
news is
there is a treatment: the drug Diamox increases the breathing rate
while
sleeping, eliminating this effect. The
bad news is that it does so by acting as a diuretic.
When I took it, I was
reliably up at two hour
intervals all night long.
That means
a
trip to the toilet at 6, 8, 10, 12, 2, 4, and 6. Each
time involves finding glasses and
headlamp, getting out of the bag and getting semi-dressed, finding and
putting
on shoes, crawling out of the tent, finding the toilet, then navigating
back to
the tent and reversing all the steps.
Still, It was worth it to be
able to sleep in between the trips
outside.
| Another
effect of
the altitude was that every single thing took a lot more effort and
energy:
putting on boots, eating, packing up the sleeping bag: everything. Most
of us stopped washing up in the morning
because we simply did not have the time or energy to do it. Every
step of the way we would have to stop
and breathe, to recover and to try to remember the next step. |
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After Lunch
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