Mortality of the knees
March 19, 2017 § 1 Comment
I was prepared for many dangers, mishaps, illnesses, mistakes. In my pack is Diamox for the altitude, antibiotics for infections, Tylenol for headaches, Imodium for — well, you name it, I’ve got it. But I was not prepared for this.
*
On the fourth day, we leave the hovel owned by the old Nepali couple and ascend the mountain in the snow. We have slept intermittently the night before, but we are glad to be hiking, glad to have the white wall of the Gaurishankur Mountain Range towering brilliantly against the blue sky to our left.
A Nepali sheep dog tags along with us as we climb through the ankle deep snow. He is friendly, and we name him Norgay after the Sherpa who first climbed Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary.
The snow is deeper the farther we climb, and soon, we leave Norgay behind to ascend a steep ridge in knee deep snow toward the Lamajura Pass at around 12,000 feet. We come across deserted lodges, silent on the mountainside. Occasionally, a helicopter from the nearby airport of Lukla soars overheard. Otherwise, it is quiet but for our labored breathing and the click clank of our trekking poles against the stone.
When we reach the pass, dark swirling snow clouds swarm the sky and a harsh sharp wind blasts against us. The pass is a V between two mountains, nothing but two dead trees with scraggly limbs strung with tattered prayer flags slapping madly in the wild wind. It is frigid. Later, my friend Emma will call it apocalyptic. We cross the pass and we all say it is the most intense thing we have ever done. We think we have completed the hard part, but now we must descend the mountain, and this is when my knees begin to pound.
Four hours later, we are still hiking, now through thick, squishy slush. I am delirious from lack of sleep. I move so slow, placing one labored foot on the stone after another. A Nepali family comes skipping down the mountain in nothing but tennis shoes calling out, “Namaste!” before running past a crumbling mani wall. When we finally reach the town of Junbesi, I collapse into the first lodge we find.
The little four year old daughter of our host wants to play with Emma and me. She climbs up onto the seat beside us and points at our blonde hair and pats our puffy jackets, but all I can do is smile at her rosy cheeks and sad cough and sip my tea in exhaustion.
*
The next day, the hike should be easy, and it is a short, beautiful hike toward the first view of Everest. She seems so small to me, but really, it’s amazing that we can still see her behind several other large mountain ranges. When the clouds clear and she appears, the Nepali man who serves us hot lemon tea points to her and we all cheer. We stay there and drink tea and eat Snickers and marvel: we have now seen Everest, the tallest mountain in the world.
It should be an easy hike to our next tea house in the small village of Ringmu, but an intense throbbing begins in my knees and I must descend slowly, leaning heavily onto my trekking poles as I go. When we reach the lodge, I peel back my wool leggings and gasp: my knees are swollen, red, and sore. The left knee feels as if it will shoot out to the side whenever I walk on it. Of course, our host gives us a room upstairs.
*
I spend the night drifting in and out of fitfull dreams, wondering, praying that my knees will heal in the morning. How isolated I feel, several days walk from the nearest pharmacy. How guilty I know I will feel if we cannot go on tomorrow or the next day because of my knees.
In the morning, I am moderately relieved. The knees are less swollen, and we make the decision: with bandages wrapping my knees tight and menthol patches to keep them cool, we will go on, slowly.
As Emma wraps my knees with the bandages from hers and our German friend Niels’ first aid kits, I tell her about my dreams in the night. I tell her that now, I am 25 and healthy, and I have reason to hope my knees will heal tomorrow or the next day. I am also a Westerner, so if my knees do not heal tomorrow or the next day, someone will come for me, I can return to the U.S. and get the advanced medical treatment I need.
But what about the time, years from now, when my knees do not heal tomorrow or the next day? What about my Nepali host downstairs who relies on her knees for her work, and does not have advanced medical treatment to heal them should they be injured tomorrow or the next day? There is always a limit to our physical prowess; we in the West simply extend it the best we can. I think about Jesus who said, now you walk where you wish, but a day will come when others will lead you, and maybe where you do not want to go.
“My knees are making me face my own mortality!” I laugh. “That’s so morbid!”
“It is morbid!” Emma agrees.
That day, we walk to the town of Nunthala, where Niels runs ahead to order us vegetable chow mein, beer, and Snickers at a yellow and blue painted lodge on the side of a cliff. The next day, my knees are less swollen. Two days later, I buy knee braces at a pharmacy in Lukla, wonder if I need them at all, and we walk on.
Great commentary on your adventures Elizabeth. We are praying for the good health and safety for you girls.