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  Everest 2006: Fi and Paul: Fiona is starting to get sick


Location: Everest Base Camp
Altitude: 5350m
Local Time: 17:30 17 April
Weather: Overcast, 5C

Hi It's Paul here. Last night Fiona woke up with a sore throat, which has been the precursor of the upper respiratory infection that has been moving through our team. We immediately started antibiotics, not because its going to have much effect on the sore throat, but it will hopefully prevent it from becoming a lung infection. This is what happened to me - sore throat, started to get better, but then I developed a lung infection and then the sore throat got worse.

Visited the HRA medical clinic
We went to the HRA medical clinic again today, and they said I am looking much better - my lungs sound clear and my sore throat is nearly gone. It does flair up when I am exposed to cold dry air so I try to wear a mask when ever possible, including while sleeping. In one or two days I should be fine.

Sore throats are a Virus
The doctors believe that the sore throats are viral, so antibiotics won't be any help. Vitamin C, salt water gargle, steam inhalation and a mask are their recommendations. We are following these closely. The doctors here do a great job in what can only be said are less than ideal conditions; their advice and help has certainly been appreciated by Fiona and I.

Lower oxygen means things don't heal quickly
Up here things take so long to heal. I got a small cut on my thumb on the first day we arrived to base camp, and two weeks later its still basically an open wound. At sea level this would have closed over within a day or two.

Hopefully Fiona gets better soon, otherwise if she takes that same time as me (about a week and a half), it will start to be a concern for our climbing schedule. At the moment we are happy to be where we are as we don't want to acclimatize too early. There haven't been many summits in the first half of May in recent history, so we are aiming to be ready for the second half of May.

People going up to Camp 1 and 2
A number of people in our team left for Camp one this morning, and a couple have already been to camps one and two and are back in base camp. They reported that it was very cold, but that the views were simply fantastic. We are keen to go too, but maybe its a blessing in disguise that we can't. We'll all know in a month or so.

Til next time, Paul

Updates

 

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