Day 10 - Sick

Gorak Shep - Went to bed at 8pm exhausted. I woke up at 10PM feeling like I was suffocating and with a brain splitting headache. When I tried to breathe deep my lungs sent shocks of pain through my chest. The only option was rapid little breaths. I had flu like chills even though I had two layers of down on. Later the chills would alternate with bouts of sweating. I hoped it would pass, so I tried to lay down and sleep it off. Every position I tried to take was painful for my ribs. Sat up 1/2 hour later feeling nausea as well.

At this point I knew I was heading for serious trouble. These were the symptoms of AMS (Accute Mountain Sickness). I knew that there was only one thing to do do recover; go down. I had read enough about Everest do know a bit about AMS. It had lead to the death of many people when they stayed up high on the mountain ignoring the symptoms, or denying them, or unable to descend. I wsn't sure whether I had Pulminary Edima, or Cerebral Edema, or some combination, but I knew I had AMS of some sort.
I woke up Alison, who had taken a sleeping pill hoping for solid sleep. I told her that I needed her help; maybe she could help me decide if we needed to go down right then and there, and hike through the night. I wasn't sure if it was safe to remain until the next day.
Alison pulled out the trekking guide, turned to the pages on AMS and read that it was probably okay to wait until morning before descending.

I slept very little. I just waited, trying not to focus on the misery of it all, and praying for the sun to rise... It finally did at 5:30AM. It took quite a bit of energy to move at all. As I tried to dress and lace up my boots, I could barely think. It took forever to pack. When things were halfway packed, and I was geared up, I headed to the restaurant to try to get some food and water, figuring the porters would be able to finish the job. But food looked nauseating. I forced down some water.

Alison and I headed down as the sun rose. I moved slightly faster than backwards, stopping every 10 steps or so to try to get some air and prepare for the next 10. We hiked about half the speed that we had going up. And going up was slow.
After a forever march down to Lobuche, we stopped to hydrate and try to rest. Alison told me to lay down on the bench. As I did, one of the lodge staff began hammering on something, just inside the door to the kitchen. I don't know what he was banging on, but I fell asleep almost instantly anyway. I slept for maybe 20 minutes solid.

I was hoping to get down to Dughla, thinking that would be enough of a descent to recuperate. Karma wanted me to get down to Pheriche which was another 2-3 hours of hiking. There was a tricky decision to make at this point. Too much strain would contribute to worsening symptoms, but descending would give me more oxygen and help to relieve them. Get down, but don't kill yourself doing it, I was thinking.

We decided to go all the way down to Pheriche in the valley below. We hoped the exertion of energy it required to get there would not override the thicker air I would get there. In hindsite, I think we pushed too hard. It was almost 12 hours of hiking. 5:30am to 5:30pm. We ended up descending 870meters (2,870ft) and hiked 12 kilometers (7.4 miles). Kind of brutal when you have AMS.