This excerpt is from the team’s prolonged trek to base camp in Tibet which should have taken five days but was stretching on endlessly because we were beset by snowstorms and our yaks could not cross a high mountain pass in the deep snow. Instead, local people agreed to become porters. I was the only woman on the team, serving as the medical officer though I was a 25-year-old medical student.
On our eighth morning of camping at Lhatse, waiting for porters to help us cross the pass, I wrapped the blood pressure cuff around Robert’s arm and pumped, then slowly released the air, noting the numbers on the gauge. I placed two fingers on his radial artery and counted the thumps while looking at the second hand of my new Rolex watch.
Before we’d left New York, Rolex had given each of us a watch during a ceremony at the Explorer’s Club, in addition to providing financial support for the expedition. The men received large adventure-style GMT models, and I got a small feminine model. The following day, I called Rolex and traded mine in for the men’s version. Now, I looked at that clunky thing on my wrist, meant to remind me I was a fierce adventurer like the guys, and admitted it didn’t suit me at all.
Blood pressure and pulse normal. Robert swallowed a nifedipine pill, and we waited. A case report in the literature indicated that this medication, normally used to lower blood pressure, might help with altitude sickness.
“Okay, now stand up and I’ll take your vitals again,” I said, measuring his blood pressure and pulse at various time intervals and positions.
“I have a great feeling about this!” Robert sang in a chipper voice. He had done an ad campaign for the manufacturer, secured a bottle of pills, and sold himself on the idea of using them. But before he ingested nifedipine on the mountain, we wanted to make sure he didn’t have an adverse reaction such as dizziness, headache, or a drop in blood pressure. None of the other climbers wanted to experiment with their bodies high on Everest, but Robert did.
Our experiment was completed without adverse effects. Robert planned to use nifedipine only in dire circumstances, specifically with symptoms of pulmonary edema. I didn’t know if this was a good idea, but I considered my role to provide information and let people make their own decisions. Robert added the pills to his first aid kit along with the fizzy vitamins that made him even bouncier. He’d gotten those from another advertising client. It turns out Robert had foresight. Nifedipine is now used routinely for prevention and treatment of high-altitude pulmonary edema.
Returning to my sleeping bag for a midmorning snuggle, I flipped the pages of White Limbo, the book about the Australian Everest expedition most like ours, the success of which convinced us to go vegetarian. In the prologue, Lincoln Hall, the author and one of the climbers, addressed the question of why mountaineers climb: “Part of my mind dismissed the question as irrelevant. My existence was irrevocably bound with the challenge, the friendships, and the lack of confusion which makes mountaineering separate from the illusions and pretensions of everyday living. It did not matter that there was no pot of gold at the top. It was enough to climb the rainbow.”
His words spoke to me. We were living with singular focus, and friendships were developing from our intense life together. Scanning our tent, seven feet long and four feet wide, I was amazed Robert and I and all our stuff could share this space and be okay. More than okay, cozy. I shut the book, reached for my Walkman, popped in a meditation tape by the guru from the ashram I’d visited, and closed my eyes. Next, Joni Mitchell piped through my headphones, my favorite female guru and source of feminine energy and inspiration. I related to her words about skating to a faraway place. Wishing her feet could fly. Yes.
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