Everest Made Me a Pill Popper

With about 2 days left until Base Camp, I began to feel a slight tightness in the middle of my forehead. Although I was alarmed, I'd recently read Garth Stein’s The Art of Racing in the Rain and learned that the car goes where the eyes go, or in other words, you manifest your own destiny. Acknowledging the headache would only make it true. I refused to give the pain any mental attention. I drank 2 liters of water in one sitting and slowed my pace to be safe, but the pounding only intensified. While I could’ve probably forced myself to stick it out another few days, the issue was the altitude – I still had another 3,750 feet to climb and I already felt like my brain had bought a steel-toe boot and was trying to bust out of my skull by kicking a hole through my forehead.

As many of you know, I do not normally take what I jokingly refer to as “Western medicine” for minor discomforts. To clarify, almost anything that is painful but endurable is classified as minor. For instance, got a headache? Lay down and turn the off the lights. Cramps? Lay down and use a heating pad. Broken heart? Lay down, listen to King of Wishful Thinking, and eat your body weight in peanut M&Ms. Runny Nose? Get up and catch it! (Har har har – I suck). You get the point…I’m not an extremist; I support any medications where real treatment is necessary. Just so long as we are treating the root cause and not just the symptom (copyrights to CEB!). But I’ve gotten off-track - the point is that my regular policy is to tough it out, and maybe do some theraputic whining on the phone to an indulgent grandparent.

I tried to walk on. That’s when I realized I could barely stand upright. The pain was searing and beginning to make me dizzy and nauseous. What’s worse is that it seemed to have gone from 0-60 in 20 minutes and was only worsening! When it was clear I couldn’t ignore it, I tried reasoning with myself. I said to my body, you stupid traitor, I fed you organic vegan gluten free protein bars the whole trek - you’re supposed to be healthy. Now do your damn job: oxygenate me! And when that didn’t work (shockingly), I did what many desperate souls do: I turned to drugs. I decided that I would make it to Base Camp even if I had to be doped up and crawling on all fours. With that I popped a Paracetamol. And another (the recommended dose). And within minutes - miracle of all miracles – I felt fine. Modern medicine is remarkable! I understood why it was easy to make a habit of this sort of thing, though I vowed it was only a mountaineering phase of mine (much like my rhinestone phase of ‘02).

A few hours later the tightness returned and I took another Paracetamol. I was turning into quite the little hypocrite! And then the next day, at the direction of a volunteer doctor and our guide, my fellow trekker and I began taking half a dose of Diamox each day, a “real drug” prescribed to me by the travel clinic (but available over the counter all over Nepal nowadays) before I left that helps your body breathe more efficiently to intake more oxygen and prevent altitude sickness (note: there is still only one treatment, and that is to get down - Diamox is only preventative). After just half a pill, I felt fantastic! And yet totally demoralized. What did I stand for?

But I had bigger fish to fry. The headaches were gone but the altitude was still making me feel faint. I was weak and short of breath those last few days, and the final stretch to the base camp was a fight for every step. My heart was racing even at rest as if I were in an all out sprint, and my breathing sounded like I was having a panic attack. I could barely control where my feet went as I tripped and scrambled over boulders, and all I wanted was to lie down and be relieved of my own verticality. I can only thank L.L. Bean for making such sturdy ankle support boots because I felt like Gumby (remember him??) as I stumbled almost drunkenly over rocks and ice. And all this was happening in slow motion; we walked at the same pace as a bridal procession. But eventually, stone after glacial stone, I made it. Upon arriving, a feeling of gratitude fused energy into my veins – how much help I’d gotten! How lucky I was! How proud!

The funny thing about most epiphanies is that they're usually things that we already "know" on a surface level but never really understood, swallowed, and internalized. Only after we put ourselves through something, does this shallow knowledge become real to us. At that moment, standing in the cold wind with Everest stretched out before me and the glacial remains engulfing the camp, I realized (for probably the hundredth time in my young life) that we are so fortunate. We live in a society that is at the cutting edge of pretty much everything, and at the same time have access to the internet, public libraries, and infinite sources of information. Yet we are so busy craving more that we don’t often stop to celebrate the progress we’ve made and the tools we’ve created to set ourselves up for success. Unlike the Nepalis or other trekkers from the third world, I had advantages the whole way: high quality boots, a hefty down jacket, an attentive native guide, plenty of drinking water (which got quite expensive at the top) and effective affordable drugs.

I must confess that I sometimes get frustrated with the Western world; for all our fortune we can be so petty, so envious, so spoiled (me included, and one of the guiltiest). Compared to the rest of the world we are uniquely comfortable, and we never let ourselves feel hunger or pain or sadness. We pop pills, see specialists, and feel sorry for ourselves. I’m not suggesting we should suffer unnecessarily, but rather recognize that we are lucky and blessed to have the option to comfort ourselves in just about any situation (if only we could apply a bit more discretion as to which situations are worthwhile, and which can be easily endured with a bit of grit). 

I realized, perched upon a rock at Everest Base Camp, that we have given ourselves the tools to do anything, to overcome anything. Globalization has opened up new avenues of obtaining knowledge (such as the wisdom of the Sherpas and their garlic), and modern science has produced potent yet simple, cheap pills that can actually help the body breathe better. All we have to do now is combine our vast resources with old-fashioned judgment and determination, and there is no end to what we might solve. As long as we remember to practice the art of patience and tolerance. As leaders of the first world, we are so fortunate, so well-equipped! Screw garlic, we have Diamox.