Today I woke up feeling really exhausted. I had a pretty bad headache, and my stomach hurt. I told our guide this and he said I shouldn’t come on the hike today which was really long and steep. He explained that it is harder for kids to acclimatize and if I go on the hike, it might make things worse. So, I decided to stay back and sleep. Right before everyone left our guide measured my oxygen saturation and pulse with a little machine that you put on your finger. We do this every night to give him an idea of how well we're acclimatizing. This morning, my oxygen saturation was 64 and pulse was 145 which is really bad. On a previous night, he told us if the oxygen saturation is in the sixties that it is a real problem. He told me to take Diamox which is a type of drug that helps people deal with the symptoms of altitude sickness. So I stayed back and pretty much slept all day until everyone got back. I felt a lot better afterwards. My headache and stomachache had gone away, and I had a lot more energy. Our guide measured my pulse and oxygen saturation again and was very relieved to see that the pulse went down and my oxygen saturation got to 78. Later that night, we fit our crampons onto our mountaineering boots because we would be going to the glacier the next day. Below is what crampons look like.
One of the members of our group who is from the UK started to also feel really bad that night. My stomach also started to feel bad again. After that, we had dinner and went to sleep.
Here are pictures my dad took on his hike.
Frightening and thrilling to hear of your challenges and how you’re ready to overcome them. Keep at it, Emma!
Ugh, I know that feeling. So glad you rested. Love you so much.