Feeling better and went to Hospital

April 21st Wed.
I awoke with my favorite fragrance again this morning, the smell of pee. I am sure all of you would like to smell this when you wake from a good night’s sleep. Well I hope this will be my last. The last time I went this morning I was able to be regular and was able to hold it until all was in place so I was pretty happy with that process.
I was able to get up and go to breakfast and eat pretty well and then went in the communications tent to read email and talked to Mark Dale in Australia and it looks like we finally got a big deal we needed and some warranty issues cleared. So Life was getting back to normal mentally but the body is still shot. The weather finally cooperated and I was able to get those nasty clothes off (even Jim was talking about it) on me, took a nice shower (well as nice as it can be in 40F degree weather and I put on my favorite pair of long underwear (Thanks Sybil) they are best wearing and the thinness is perfect for what I need on the climbing trips. I am off to eat lunch now and then over to the hospital. Jim and I have been going through every detail of the last couple of days to try to nail down what really happen but at this point there is no real conclusion. I have been climbing 8 years and Jim has been doing it for 38 years and we cannot put a series of things that happen that point to a clear conclusion. I will update this letter before I post it if the Dr has anything else to add. Well we went to the doctor and guess what he gave me for the next 3 days, Cipro, surprise for you guys in the medical field. He said I could have a little bit of a kidney infection, (yes not normal for a man my age) but that is what we are treating. The lungs are still good but we had to wait on several who are not in good shape. I am so glad that is not my problem because that is something that is hard to overcome as you get higher.
Jim went and got oxygen for us to go up to camp 3 today so that made me feel good. This is a pay to play type deal when you pay for it is yours unless you are lucky to unload it at a fire sale. The cost was about $2500 so it is not cheap. These are refill bottles which we will use below but he did not spend the big money for the summit (new) bottles yet. He will wait and see how I do in the next few days of climbing which hopefully will be day 3 from now. I have to get food liquids and rest over the next couple of days so I can be ready to go again. I feel so much better but am still tired and have little energy but after the last couple of days I will take anything better.

I spent the day trying to reorganize worked a bit and saw the doctor so it was a pretty full day. The one thing is that I got up at 8 and am still up at 5:30 which is has been 4 days since that has happened.

Have a good day and may tomorrow be better than today.