When Everything Screws Up On Your Expedition

This was gonna be a funky trip. Everything was planned out for the well-documented summit of Peak Lenin in Kyrgyzistan. At 7134 meters, this was to be my first 7000er. But, life taught me again that while mountaineering is fun, it is also “unstabil”.

After the climb, I would have made an awesome trip to the ancient cities of Uzbekistan. However, things took a totally different direction. Here’s the scoop. Don’t worry, no animals were harmed… Before your big mountain, your first serious expedition, you usually bring yourself to a pretty good condition. You load your body with vitamins by eating enormous amounts of fruits and veggies, so that the immune system is tops as well. You buy and steal from friends some mountaineering equipment that’s missing from your kit and drag your 42 kilograms of stuff to the airport. The carry-on baggage is shamelessly heavy at 15 kg, but thanks to the liberal approach of Air Turkey staff, you get through without paying a dime for excess kilograms. Hey, it’s mountaineers’ luck!

The Problem

The fever hit me in basecamp. There was no special reason for it either… There was no apparent cause – we had just come back from a light, easy acclimatisation hike to 4000 meters with my friend when I suddenly felt a wave of heat hit me as we got back down to the valley. In no time, my body temperature measured 38,6 degrees Celsius (101,5 Fahrenheit) and there was no turning back.

Later that evening, it climbed all the way to 102,8. Bad luck. I was mentally starting to prepare for a skinny dip in the freezing glacial river in the middle of the night, because no medicine would help me get the fever down. Azamat, the doc at basecamp (thanks a lot to Pamir Expeditions for providing excellent service to climbers and care for the sick, you’re awesome) luckly had some injections. A carefully aimed shot in my butt resulted in the fever calming to a more managable level.

However, the fever wouldn’t leave, my world-famous appetite was completely gone, I lived on like 2 cups of rice a day. After four days of this, doc Azamat said: “you go back to valley” and so I did. Back to the dirty and hot city of Osh; 7 hours of bumping along the dusty roads of the Pamir. In the valley, the fever does seem to subside – but only for a day, as the following mornig, I’m above 101 degrees again with a headache previously unexperienced. I can hardly walk.

The state of Kyrgyz hospitals would be another story. Actually, it wasn’t as bad as I had expected. Everything was painted bright blue, which did make a difference in my mood.

What’s Your Problem?

Noone knew what my problem was. As the fever wouldn’t die down, the doctors and I decided I should fly home. What a bummer. The expedition planned a month-long shortened to 11 days. But, it was impossible to tell how much time I needed to get better. Maybe a few days, maybe a week. Spending that time in Osh with daily highs of 110 degrees made no sense. Besides, after the fever’s gone, I would have needed another 3-4 days to get my strength back, to get in shape to travel again. Waiting around for 1-2 weeks just made no sense. So I rebooked my plane ticket and flew home.

Having come home and undergone several examinations, they still don’t know what was in me. My blood shows signs of bacterial infections, but it’s impossible to tell, what it is that really got me.

The Moral of the Story Is…

There isn’t one. Except for how I handled the thing. It wasn’t easy, as you can imagine. Having prepared for months, having spent a bunch of money and time on this project…. Then getting sick to not even touch snow or take your climbing gear out of the bag… Not nice.

But I probably needed a slap in the face like this one to be reminded of how much worse things could have gone… and to retrain my ability to accept what life gives me. That doesn’t mean I don’t strive for things or “fight” for them (although “fight” is not a good word). It just means that when there is nothing you can do about something, you quicky and peacfuly accept it – and not fret over it.

Have you had similar stuff happen to you? How did you get over it?