I Felt Like I Was Going To Die

Posted on Jan 13, 2010 under El Paso Mountains | No Comment

During this last trip to the El Paso Mountains I had no idea what I was in for.  Friday night we went to sleep and I ended up waking up in the middle of the night with a high fever and a soar throat.  I was shivering uncontrollably, was very thirsty and had to take a leak very badly.

I knew I needed to wake someone up to see if they might have some Tylenol of something to help my condition.  It was very dark in the tent so I tried to reached over and woke up Dustin and asked him if I he had any medicine.  I told him how I was feeling and he was able to dig up someone acetaminophen pills.  I took the pills, drank some water urinated and went back to sleep.

When I woke up I felt a little better.  I still had some soarness in my throat and had body aches all around.  After awhile everyone got up and we began to get prepared for the day.  We ate breakfast and drank some instant coffee.

I took  an energy pill along with the coffee in hopes that the stimulants would help me cope with the symptoms for the long hike.  I thought if I hike constant and keep up a sweat, maybe I would sweat it all out.  What dumb idea that turned out to be.

As we started hiking my fever started to kick in right away with the body aches.  I just toughed it out for awhile and then ended up taking more acetaminophen to null the fever.  It helped a little as continued down the valley in search for more chippings.

After awhile I began to feel slightly paranoid.  It just came out of no where.  I started feeling like something was wrong with everything.  It progressed rather quickly until I started thinking about weird scenarios of situations happening that ultimately ended in me getting hurt somehow.  At the same time my body aches came back and throat pain.

Eventually our group split up and we started on our treck up Black Mountain as planned.  The paranoia stayed constant was eventully joined by anxiety.  After awhile of mental horror I ended up pulling Andy aside and I explained to him what was happening.  We spoke breifly about it and we both agreed that it was probably temporary and would go away after awhile.

It didn’t  the problem got worse and worse.  I started feeling so paranoid about every single thought that passed through my mind.  I was ever afraid to tell them how I felt.  I was afraid that I might die out there and that people were going to think I was a loser.

I finally told them in so many words that it was an emergency and that i may need to go to a hospital.  I told them that maybe if I just got back to the camp and laid down for awhile I would be ok.  We eventually got back to the camp but had to scale a decent size mountain to get there.  I remember being so exhuasted and soar all over my body.

I made my way to Dustin’s truck and blacked out for about 30 minutes.  I was awaken by Andy and Dustin who checked my forehead and decided to leave.  They packed up the gear and we left.  We stopped at a local store and they bought me some tylenol which I took and started feeling better right away.  We ate and eventually made it hope around 7:30pm.  When I got back I showered and went to sleep at about 8:30pm.  I woke up at 1am, took some Nyquil, drank some water and passed back out until about 8:30am.

I have been just resting all this week and right now I feel like I am just about well.  My throat still feels a little puffy but I think I am almost 100% again.  I am just so glad the paranoia and anxiety are gone….