It’s 1:30 in the morning and you’re wide-awake. And it’s not
because you’ve been partying balls and have the munchies. In fact, you’re lying
in your sleeping bag, in a tent at 16,000 ft with a slight headache that just won’t
seem to go away no matter how many grams of Tylenol you ingest. The guy in the
tent next to you is crushing logs so deeply you are convinced he is wrestling a
wookie…. which makes your lingering insomnia even more frustrating.
On top of the tossing and turning in your stinky sleeping
bag, you are racked with a cocktail of feelings and emotions.
Excitement, Fear, Uncertainty, Nervousness, Self doubt.
All percolating in your sleepy head.
This is a typical scenario for most folks as they prepare
for a summit attempt on a mountain with any substance to it. I have seen it
play out for over 20 years…including last weeks Kilimanjaro expedition.
This was another good one…
As I typically do, I had planned out the staggered times of
departure our team based on observed pace over the previous week. Alpha team
would depart at 3am and I would depart with Bravo team at 4am. I downloaded
expectations for the clients, established contingency plans for potential
evacs, arranged my African guide team in the order that seemed most effective…
and so on. Dot all the “I”s; cross all the “T”s.
Then we step off…and it all changes. As usual.
Within 10 minutes from camp I noticed that one of my
strongest returning vets from last year’s Whitney expedition was dropping off
the “peloton”. I spent 30 minutes with him, trying to get him fired up and coax
him into lock stepping with me as I watched the rest of the 24 clients slowly
pull away up the hill by the light of their headlamps. His legs just felt heavy
and his motor wasn’t firing. We’ve all been there. It just wasn’t his day. We
both knew it.
But this wasn’t the guy I expected to drop off early.
Alas… strange things happen up high.
As I left my guy in the competent hands of my assistant
African guide, I charged up the hill to join the rest of the team. And all was
back to normal. The cacophony of folks pressure breathing. The shuffle of the
dirt and rocks. The chant of Swahili song. All sounds that are so familiar to
my ears on Kili summit nights.
And then…
“Shit!!! Shit!!! It’s out again!!!”
From 10 meters up above, I knew immediately whose voice it
was and exactly what he was referring to.
It was Rick and he was reacting to the fact that his wife,
Tina, had her shoulder dislocate. Again. This time at 17,500 ft.
A week before, in the midst of the pre departure excitement
of arriving at the gate and preparing to step off on this grand adventure, Tina
had lowered herself down from the Landcruiser using her left arm in a stressed
angle and suddenly…
Pop!
It was out. First time ever.
Now I've put a lot of shoulders and hips back in place
over my 20-year medical career but never on Day 1 of an expedition at the entry
gate, literally minutes before we were to step off on a 7 day expedition.
With about 2 to 3 minutes of manipulation, I was able to
reduce the shoulder back in place. She showed her grit and strength during the
procedure and once she was slinged up and and her pack was handed off…she acted
as if nothing had even happened.
The women are stronger. No doubt.
Back at 17,500 ft the sun had just crested over the horizon,
Venus was glowing red in the low sky and the coldest hours were behind us. The
backdrop couldn’t have been more magnificent… but the levity of the dislocated
shoulder was significant.
We all breathed together. Calmed down as best we could.
Situated our bodies to get good position on the shoulder and arm. And I got to
work. There are several approaches and techniques for reducing shoulders and
sometimes they are all needed to finally get it back in. This was one of those
cases. I attempted the approach I was successful with 7 days prior. Nope. No
matter how hard I yarded on Tina’s shoulder and how much pain I subjected her
to… still out.
She went to a deep place. A deep meditative place that takes
skill and experience to reach. A place that most of us won’t know. I watched my
wife go there during her 18 hours of natural childbirth. I’ve seen a handful of climbers go there
during rescue operations off of Alaskan peaks back in the day when I was
working SAR in the Range.
But a weaker person would have crumbled into a sloppy pile
of blubbering shit. Tina did not. She stuck with me as I changed my approach.
Again and again.
Thirty minutes went by and it was still out. I had run
through my bag of tricks.
Forty-five minutes now and I was getting scared. Every
minute that went by meant that the musculature and tissue around the shoulder
joint were clamping down and making it progressively harder to reduce. If we
would have been in the safe confines of an emergency department, we would have
sedated Tina and administered some muscle relaxants to drop the head of humerus
back into it’s joint space.
But instead, we were leaned up against a rock in the dirt at
sunrise close to the summit of one of the “7 Summits”.
In somewhat of a last ditch effort, I positioned Tina head
to head with me, standing, facing me. I held her forearm with one of my hands
and with the other I slowly continued to manipulate her shoulder. I closed my
eyes. I prayed. And the Great Spirit, she listened.
Clunk.
It was back in.
Slowly I applied a sling and swath and started into the
conversation with Rick and Tina about the next steps.
Clearly Tina was headed down. But what about Rick?
Rick is a tough dude. He is like me in the sense that his
character is to summit. When he attempts something, it will get done. This is
who he is. He was born to summit.
I offered to take Tina down and let him go up with the team
on stand on top.
After a quick consult with Tina, he told me there was no
question… he would accompany his wife down.
I was more than impressed with this decision. He chose
commitment to his wife over his own aspirations. He chose to be a servant
leader.
Bad ass.
OK…get them packaged up and set up with an African guide for
the descent and get back to work with the team… who were now an hour above me
on the mountain.
As the adrenaline of the shoulder incident ebbed from my
body, I kicked it into a high gear and caught the team within 20 minutes.
And it was then that I realized I was smoked. My heart
pounding out of my chest. My energy levels clearly effected. Not something I
wanted my clients to take note of.
I shelved it as best I could and methodically walked the
remaining steps to the summit of Africa.
The joy and satisfaction was palpable. Within our coalition
we had a blind vet, a vet with 1 foot, several other injured vets, a 66 year
old woman that had never camped before and over another dozen folks that represent
straight up Americana.
I was proud.
But then came the descent. Often times the hardest part.
Physically and metaphorically. We must return home and share the story of the
journey with those who weren’t with us. This is not easy. How do you capture
the feelings and emotions that are only gleaned from battle with yourself and
the elements?
Summit night captures the spectrum of the human condition.
That’s why we keep searching for it. We need to feel alive.
And when the landscape changes in spite of our best efforts, we feel the most
alive.
Upward
Jeff
