UCLA Journal of Radiation Oncology APRIL 2023 - Flipbook - Page 43
UCLA RADIATION ONCOLOGY JOURNAL
28.3949° N, 84.1240°
with UCLA Radiation Oncology's Melissa Alspaugh
The dream of going to Nepal was hatched roughly five years ago. I was a competitive
rower in a former life and I longed for a physical challenge again. Maybe part of it was
ego to say I’d been there, but Mount Everest had always intrigued me. From the numerous
documentaries about Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, to the mystery surrounding
George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, I was absolutely in awe of the spectacular scenery and
the adventure The Himalayas held. I just wanted to stand amongst these giant mountains,
so trekking to the elevation of 17,598 feet where Mount Everest Base Camp is located
became the goal. However, one of the hardest points in my life was about to come. My
father became very ill with Idiopathic Lung Fibrosis and any thought of travel was put
on hold as we pursued a lung transplant. Fortunately, he was one of the lucky ones and
his surgery was completed in October of 2019. Dad was stable and I thought my time had
come to start planning again, but the COVID pandemic had other ideas. Eventually it
became apparent that I just had to start planning and hope that the next year would be the
year.
I began to research the logistics of putting a trip like this together and the training
required. The relatively easy part was sorting out a guide, obtaining a visa, and booking
flights. The more difficult topics were what to pack and the always challenging issue
of altitude sickness. This made me nervous. I studied altitude sickness as if it were a
religion, yet there remained differing opinions on how to prepare and who it affected. I
was already going to be flying into an elevation where most people feel short of breath
and have some symptoms. If I was going to make it to my goal, I had to be cautious and
listen to my body. There are numerous accounts in which people underestimated altitude
sickness and had to be rescued by helicopter, often with a hospital stay, and sometimes
even death. I had the choice of taking Acetazolomide (Diamox) prophylactically, but I
declined. My concern was that this wasn’t a drug that prevented altitude sickness, but
essentially masked the symptoms. As far as my training, I went to Mount Baldy in the San
Gabriel Mountains and hiked the Baldy Bowl trail. Although a lesser elevation, it gave me
a gruelling 4,000 foot ascent that would prepare me for the trails in Nepal. Coincidentally
I found several people up on Mount Baldy who had been to Nepal and were more than
43