Growing up in the U.S. and never leaving Africa just sounds like a scary place, but it's really not.
It's a very interesting city and they're very different from the United States and where we're coming from.
I love it. I feel okay in the chaos.
I've had a razor-thin introduction into African culture and I look to learn more.
In our work, we've been interested in heart failure and other diseases where oxygen delivery is a problem.
We can mimic that here on the mountain very quickly and healthy people by exposing them to high altitude.
Studies like this one where we have 30 people climbing a mountain where we can accomplish the study in 10, 12 days
would probably take us a year or longer back at Mayo Clinic in the laboratory.
Field studies are not identical to very controlled laboratory studies
and can yield different results that are very meaningful to the environment
and to translate much, much better than necessarily things done in a sterile lab environment.
So after a mad dash of two days of hardcore testing and organizing our equipment
was just liberating to throw everything into the top of the bus and just head off into the mountain
and now all you got to do is just do it.
Every step uphill takes work.
Putting a pack on every morning and we're sweating and we're getting hungry, we're suffering loss of appetite, headaches
all these things that go with altitude, but if we make it to the top, yeah.
I think the sense of distance was what struck me the most.
You could see how far the mountain was away and how big it was
and it's vast plain and all you can see is the mountain and you're like, that's where I'm going.
And at that point you have a lot of energy and you're like, and nothing's going to stop me.
That's just still at the beginning of your trek.
So by the time you get to the fourth or fifth day you're like, oh man, when do we get there?
It's an incredible change because you start out in truly a tropical rainforest.
Then you start getting into the alpine zone.
Where I'm standing right now there's literally only lichen on the rocks
and the occasional raven but not any flower to be seen.
The vistas are beyond description.
It's magical and the play of the colors and the shadows and the warm tones as they change.
I've never seen a night sky full of stars to the same level and degree as here.
It's an incredible environment and I'm quite taken with it I must say.
It's crazy because you have this equipment, a hundred thousand dollar ultrasound machine
and it's delicate.
When you realize that the porter is carrying it on his head with one hand, what can you do?
You just say, okay, I'm just going to hope it gets there and it's all good.
And it was, it was great.
So the systems are robust and the porters are good at what they do.
Let's face it, some of the things we were asking to do were challenging
and making someone exercise at four and four and a half to five thousand meters is a challenge.
I'd have been happy with 80% of the data on the way up and down.
The fact is we've got all of the data, 27 lots of data, pretty much on the way up and on the way down.
It's just phenomenal.
The summit, that was a hard day.
You're praying for the sun, you never want a sunrise more than that day.
You never want to see the sun more than on that day.
I think a lot of people are used to pushing themselves through, you know, a hard athletic activity.
But being in altitude is different.
There's no gradient from feeling comfortable to feeling tired.
People's oxygen saturation is in the 70s, maybe even high 60s.
So at that point you're really gasping for air with every step that you take.
The best things in life are the things that challenge you, the things that require effort and work.
And the more you put into it, the greater that intrinsic reward is.
I think to me the porters are the most memorable part of the trip.
They were so friendly, they had a positive spirit, they were funny.
It was an easy connection and that's the part I'm going to miss the most of the trip.
I'm not one for singing and dancing, but those guys can rock it for sure.
I'm not one for singing and dancing, but I'm not one for singing and dancing.
