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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I knew that washing dishes in Antarctica would be cold -- but I didn't know it would become a life-or-death version of "Survivor."
Jan 23, 2003 | The ice runway at McMurdo Station is not only at sea level, it is the sea -- the Ross Sea. The ice has been shaved so that planes can take off and land on the ocean's surface. I didn't know it at the time, but as I stepped from that frigid runway into an airplane headed for the South Pole, I was leaving behind the elements that would soon save my life: sea level and oxygen.
About five months ago I left Salt Lake City to live in Antarctica. I'm not an adventurer, world traveler or thrill seeker of any kind. I've never gotten a passport. Nonetheless, I was in the mood for a change when the National Science Foundation offered me a chance to occupy a windowless room in Antarctica and wash dishes for 981 people. The contract guaranteed a place to live, $4.88 an hour, and the opportunity to work 60 hours a week cleaning up after scientists in a town called McMurdo Station, 900 miles north of the South Pole. I took it.
Not long after I landed in McMurdo, my skills were needed at the science station at the South Pole. "You may not be the best dishwasher in McMurdo," my boss told me, "but you're the one I'd like to get rid of. You're on the next C-130 flight to the South Pole. Pack your bags."
Shortly after I arrived at the South Pole, I was plagued by shortness of breath, headaches, difficulty in breathing, confusion. I knew everyone else there was breathing the same air I was; but it seemed their air had more oxygen in it. I talked to a few people about my problem until I was blue in the face. The consensus was that I should see Will Silva, get hooked up to oxygen, then possibly face the cold, hard fact that I couldn't hack it and go back to sea level.
"Go see Dr. Silva," my friend Mark said. "Suck on some oxygen."
A word about Silva: If you've read the book "Ice Bound" about Jerri Nielsen, the doctor who battled her own breast cancer at the South Pole, or if you've read almost anything about current happenings at the Pole, the name "Will Silva" is bound to show up. When I left for the South Pole, he was one of my heroes (and would soon be again).
But I put off seeking his help. Living at the South Pole is like being on the TV show "Survivor," except we wear parkas instead of swimming suits. If I went to the doctor, I could be evicted from the bottom of the world. That was not going to happen. My flame would not be snuffed out because I couldn't breathe.
So I went to work scrubbing dishes, ignoring the preliminary signs of potentially lethal pulmonary edema, or high-altitude sickness, which causes lungs to fill with fluid and creates extreme disorientation.
A TV screen in the galley at the South Pole broadcasts updates of the temperature, wind chill and barometric pressure. The temperature always seemed to be minus 47 with a wind chill near minus 70. Although the altitude of the pole is 9,301 feet, the barometric altitude read 10,400-11,000 feet.
I'm from Salt Lake City, certainly not the Mile-High City, but 6,000 feet or so above sea level. And, although I'm not an avid mountain climber, I have hiked higher than 11,000 feet at some point or another. Hadn't I? Eleven thousand feet seemed too low for altitude sickness.
Then, as I lay in my bed one Friday night, breathing in gasps that sounded as though I was sucking air through a water bong, I decided that the next day I'd better check the altitude of Mount Timpanogas and other mountains around Utah I had climbed. As soon as I woke up, I'd go to the Internet and find those elevations to reassure myself that I could handle a mere 11,000 feet.
But I didn't wake up the next day, because I couldn't go to sleep.
The feeling that kept me awake is best described as lying in bed and slowly suffocating. It wasn't that I didn't want to get up and go see Dr. Will; it was that I couldn't. I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't will the energy to get help. Couldn't believe it was suddenly this bad.
As I lay there, I tried to diagnosis my illness.
