Down with the sickness

People have spoken about altitude sickness creeping up unexpectedly, although I have always half dismissed it as one for the weaker trekkers who cant handle a bit of mountain air.

Previously my highest altitude was 3,400m on Mt Kinabalu, limited only by bad weather for reaching the peak. As this was completed in a day, I had assumed the height would not cause potential problems until maybe 4,000m+, out of a maximum 5,400m for the EBC trek.

I did still take precautions by starting my Diamox (altitude sickness tablets) course with a half the night before the trek and then moving on to a full tablet twice per day.

As we drew closer to what was to be the hardest part of the trek (an 800m incline in 2 hours), I mentioned to Simon that I was starting to feel a bit odd..
Within minutes I had to sit down for a short rest as my head was spinning and colors started to fade, eventually in to a complete white wash. I was feeling the sickest I had ever felt in my life.

At this point I still had no idea what was going on and heard the guide mention something about altitude sickness, surely not at 2,800m!! Still there was none of the back of head ache which I have heard people associate with altitude sickness. I moved in to the shade to try and cool down and then staggered back to the sun to avoid freezing shade, all the time worrying that my sore jaw could be something like rabies (left the shots for this too late), also wondering if this be some averse effect of a donkey dropping its guts directly in front of my head an hour earlier?

Not wanting to hold the lads up as we were close to the ascent
 (which would end with a rest day), I stood up even though every bone in my body was telling me to lay down and sleep right there in the dirt, ultimate fatigue had kicked in. All standing up achieved was causing me to drop to my knees and chunder off the side of the cliff.

Another 15 minutes passed and we made the decision to press on for 20 minutes to the next town, with the guide kindly carrying my bag given I felt far to weak and dizzy to manouver the rocky path as it was. At the small mountain town we would need  to assess our options.

When we reached the final incline I could tell this was going to be tough and I don't think I made it more than 15m before hurling my guts up another 4 times, with plenty of associated dry reaching. Our guide suggested it was probably time to call in an evacuation chopper due to my deteriorating condition, however I strongly disagreed and wanted to wait out some time in the upcoming town to see if my body would adjust. I had asked the boys to join me on this expedition and it was something we would complete together.

We finally arrived in town and set down on a table out on the grass for lunch, with my serving being some famous garlic soup that was rumoured to help me recover. After an enjoyable ginger and lemon tea, I took one spoon full of the soup and made the judgement that there was no way my stomach would keep it down. Straight to bed for me at 11am where it was time to try and recover from complete exhaustion.