Mike drop.
Name: Michael Jodlowski
Age: 21
Hometown: Hopewell Junction, NJ
Area of study: Health & Exercise Science
Year in school: Entering senior
I joined the Everest Base Camp Expedition because... I have been camping and hiking my entire life, and have always been down for a trip. My adventures have typically taken me to national parks out west, which is a road trip I have made twice now. I have also never left the country, and it was just a matter of time. When I learned in one of my favorite classes (exercise physiology) that I could study human physiology in altitude and be a part of new studies in the world of human research I new I had to apply. When Dr. Brutsaert said it would be in the Himalayas and would require long trekking hours, sucky living conditions, and we would probably get diarrhea, my application was completed within hours of being released.
I'm involved with the SU collaborative research studies by... I am extremely interested in the main studies being conducted by my ex-professor Dr. Brutsaert. However, I am participating as a subject in every study being conducted by the team here and learning everything possible along the way. I am also looking to be involved in studies not being conducted by our team such as the nearby Himalayan Rescue Association where I will likely be acting as a research participant tomorrow to pass the time and to find out more about the studies they are conducting.
I'm most looking forward to... The sunrise over Everest has received a lot of positive reviews. I am looking forward to this in part. I am most excited to see Everest from this viewpoint because it provides a perspective of the mountain that I have only seen in pictures. I have already seen the peak at this point in the trip, but being able to see the mountain in full and in person is a view I have barely allowed myself to dream about.
My favorite part of the trip so far has been... The days spent in Kathmandu left a lot of down time. Card games are only so entertaining, so I proposed “a guaranteed adventure” for those willing to get lost in Nepal. A small group of us left the hotel after a singular google search in search of a taxi. The search was short lived, and we showed the drivers of 2 taxis a picture of what we were looking for. We split up and got into two comically small taxis and embarked on the 20-minute drive to the nearest monastery. After arriving and sorting out the dress code (this involved an argument between a security guard and a taxi driver and buying a pair of pants) we were able to see for ourselves the lifestyle of the Buddhist monks here in Nepal.
The views of the grounds and seeing how the monks treated us strangers was incredible. We were each given a bag of food and were treated with incredible kindness. After seeing all there was to see we were about to leave when the head lama invited us in the temple for a prayer. This in itself cannot be described with words. The monks provided us with tea and muffins to take part in the ceremony while a thunderstorm picked up outside. We decided it was time to leave because the dirt road up the mountain was sketchy at best when a thunderstorm was not tearing it apart. On the drive back to the hotel, we came across a van stuck in the mud on the mountain, which drew both the driver of the van and our own driver into a long argument. The other students and I decided we did not want to sleep in a taxi that night, so we stripped our shoes, rolled up our pants, and pushed the van out of the mud on this dirt road outside a monastery. In the middle of a thunderstorm.
The worst part of the trip so far... The initial sorting out of how the research was to be conducted was a bit hairy. Blood gets taken, schedules get made, scientists don’t sleep and get grumpy. For some reason I volunteered to be first for the first daily baseline data collection on the first day. This involved a relatively simple process of drawing blood from a small finger prick which was to be used as comparative data for when we ascended into the mountains. However, this turned around when being pricked in the finger did not draw enough blood to collect. The second time yielded similar results. So did the third. The sixth finger prick, however, was flawless and the process was smooth sailing from there when it came to drawing blood. Fortunately enough for me I was lined up immediately after this for another finger prick, followed by cycling until I literally could not move my legs anymore, then dragged off the bike to a chair where I got finger pricked again. As long as its in the name of science I guess.
One thing most people don't know about me... A fun fact about myself that I must declare is that I recently ran my first marathon. This was only a few weeks ago now and was for a military fund raiser. A marathon is too easy for the Army I guess so this marathon required me to be in full uniform and to carry a 35 pound ruck.
Daily Recap
Me and my roommate Ben slept in after our apneic night to the ripe time of 6:30am. Breakfast was at 7, so I spent my morning sleepily staring at the wall in the common room while Ben spent some time sleepily staring at the wall in our room. Breakfast was a huge surprise and consisted of the same thing it was for the last 2 mornings. I had muesli (a horribly dry oat dish) which I dumped some hot chocolate into, along with toast and an omelet. “Omelet” is probably a strong word for the paper thin slice of scrambled eggs. There’s no shortage of seconds or thirds for breakfast so I had about 3 helpings of eggs and as much toast as I could get.
Breakfast was followed by the daily chess championship. There are currently four boards in circulation and a working power ranking which is constantly changing. Nate and I had an intense two-hour match which was paused for me to complete balance tests. This test is relatively straight forward, and my job was to stand on a force plate and look at the wall. Once I did this, I was given a virtual reality headset with moving star clusters in a void that was meant to throw off my balance to see how I would react at altitude as compared to the exact same test when it was conducted in Kathmandu. The headset was then removed and a series of wires hooked up to my vestibular nerve on both sides of my head which delivered minor electrical currents, also designed to throw off my balance. When these tests were completed I returned to the chess match and, after another interruption for Nate to complete some tests, finally won my match. I still had some time before our first lecture for the day, so I did some laundry. Laundry 4200 meters above sea level is a feat in itself, because washing machines don’t often find their way up here. As a result, I washed my underwear in a bucket with a hose about 10 feet off the main trail leading to base camp. Nothing humbles a man like washing your underwear in a bucket. I left my clothes on a rock to dry and played another game of blitz chess.
The first lecture was delivered by Wes and was relatively short. It was a review of how our bodies are adapting to the altitude as we stay here in Pheriche. This explained multiple phenomenon such as the tremendous volume of pee we all seem to be expelling, which an efficient way the body drops bicarbonate so we can rebalance our metabolic alkalosis caused by the acute hyperventilatory responses at altitude. As our pH levels off to a more tolerable level, the increased respiratory rate our bodies have taken on in a compensatory attempt to gain oxygen has less of an affect on the acidity of our blood, and even slows down as we manufacture more red blood cells.
This lecture was follows by a lunch which consisted of egg noodles of some sort, spring rolls and grilled cheese. Although I can’t imagine this is a traditional Nepali dish, it was a crowd favorite and I personally killed around 5 pounds of noodles. This was followed by a lecture from Yanne on the various forms of doping and its pertinence to sport performance as well as the dangers involved.
I then took off with a small group and the four of us walked across town (all 10 buildings of it) to the local snooker house/hookah lounge. Although I think a Nepali hookah could kill any one of us, we did learn from Sherpa how to play snooker. We put on a show and demonstrated our horrible snooker skills while the Sherpa laughed and did their best to offer pointers as well as clarify rules as we went. We decided to call the game prematurely due to a severe lack of skill that left the game pointing to no one in particular as a winner. After some more games to pass the time, we had dinner which had a buffalo meat, fried rice and French fries accompanied by the apparent Nepali classic that preludes nearly every meal: garlic soup. This was the first meal with meat in it I have had in weeks and I was sure to appreciate it. The night concluded with another Lecture from Wes on altitude and its effects on cognitive performance. This leads me to where I am now, likely about to grind out a few more chess games before the day can end.
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