Benin: Malarone, Mefloquine and port wine
Last week I received a very warm letter from Igor Pokhvalin (in the photo he is on the right, on the left is Georgy Kuzmin) with few very valuable parting advices before the ascent.
Pokhvalin is a wonderful person, we met in 2014 at the time of an expedition to Ojos del Salado. Igor writes wonderful verses, his broad outlook and rich life experience and also a non-standard view of reality make you envious of the prospect of being in the same tent with him. One among many opportunities, which mountains can give you, besides the chance of being alone, is a mental enrichment from meetings with the most interesting, extraordinary people.
Being inspired by Igor's advices as well as by his widely known articles about an adaptation to hypoxia in conditions of high mountains, I organized a group of people for picking and packing of medical products to take with me to Everest to support my organism. It looked like a medicine repacking mini-plant.
The medicines are packed in a small resealable bags - each one is a dose to take. A scheme of taking is different in the composition and dosage for the pre-ascent and the ascent period. In order not to confuse them, the bags are marked: 'З', 'О', 'У' ('завтрак', 'обед' , 'ужин' - before the ascent) and 'B', 'L', 'D' (breakfast, lunch, dinner - at the time of the ascent). Here is what I'll need to take during two months:
Once I've already made a mistake in taking of the medicine before the trip to West Africa (2012). Since the consequences was very hard for my health, and I still feel them, this story is worth being told. As the saying is - if all the medicine in the world were thrown into the sea, it would be bad for the fish and good for humanity.
The organizer of the project живая-параллель.рф - professor Andrey Teslinov and the scientific adviser of the expedition-2012 - the famous Russian Africanist, the author of many scientific publications and articles - professor Dmitry Bondarenko. In the course of the research a unique ethnographic material was obtained, we have witnessed an extremely rare cult activities, suc as these, for example: http://goo.gl/lTfg5O. The Central part of the Voodoo cult - is a real sacrifice, it can be seen here (not for the faint of heart): http://goo.gl/f3G4vo.
As one can tell after watching those video materials, a life and customs in Benin, Ghana and Togo are very different in cultural aspect, which we planned to explore, as well as in everyday, sanitary-and-hygienic and parasitogenic aspect, from the ones, which are usual for Europeans (and for the residents of Central Russia, which are not Europeans for sure).
To avoid becoming a victim of tropical diseases it is necessary to do special vaccinations and take medicines against helminths. Before the expedition a group of expedition members had been actively communicating with the organizers on Facebook, getting instructions and advises, including the ones on prevention of the penetration of the African parasites into the body. These were the ones who had the Facebook accounts :)
Two weeks before the expedition all members received an e-mail with the recommendations to take medicines Malarone and Mefloquine, damn them, during the whole trip. One of these medicines one needs to take each week, the other one medicine - each day. I bought both and started taking them according to the prescription from the letter, thinking that this recommendation was from the organisers, and they got it from competent Dmitry Bondarenko, who knows the African specificity. That my suggestion was disastrous.
As it turned out later, this letter-instruction was given to one of the expedition members at the hospital, where she did a vaccination. She sent it to the organisers, and they sent it to the other members, without checking. When Bondarenko and Sergey Goltsov - the doctor of the expedition - got it and read it, they immediately called it off - through the Facebook group - as a really harmful one: Malarone and Mefloquine are the heaviest poisons, and taking them in the preventive purposes was the practice of 70-es of the last century. All the members of the group on Facebook took it into consideration. All, except me - the one who doesn't even have an account on Facebook...
To cut a long story short, I missed this recommendation. I arrived to Sheremetyevo 4 hours before the flight, ordered a bottle of dry wine, had lunch. I took Portuguese port wine on board - the flight was long: to Cotonou via Paris and Casablanca. I met my colleagues, drank port wine. At the time of landing in Casablanca I felt, that something was wrong: I was shaking badly, as after the heaviest hangover, I began to swoon, didn't understand anything, but felt, that this reaction on alcohol wasn't standard. I became delirious... It was very bad. I stopped drinking alcohol. By the time of arrival to Benin I more or less had come to the senses, but not completely though. And I didn't stop taking those medicines - I didn't recognize yet, that they were the reason.
Last week I received a very warm letter from Igor Pokhvalin (in the photo he is on the right, on the left is Georgy Kuzmin) with few very valuable parting advices before the ascent.
Pokhvalin is a wonderful person, we met in 2014 at the time of an expedition to Ojos del Salado. Igor writes wonderful verses, his broad outlook and rich life experience and also a non-standard view of reality make you envious of the prospect of being in the same tent with him. One among many opportunities, which mountains can give you, besides the chance of being alone, is a mental enrichment from meetings with the most interesting, extraordinary people.
Being inspired by Igor's advices as well as by his widely known articles about an adaptation to hypoxia in conditions of high mountains, I organized a group of people for picking and packing of medical products to take with me to Everest to support my organism. It looked like a medicine repacking mini-plant.
The medicines are packed in a small resealable bags - each one is a dose to take. A scheme of taking is different in the composition and dosage for the pre-ascent and the ascent period. In order not to confuse them, the bags are marked: 'З', 'О', 'У' ('завтрак', 'обед' , 'ужин' - before the ascent) and 'B', 'L', 'D' (breakfast, lunch, dinner - at the time of the ascent). Here is what I'll need to take during two months:
Once I've already made a mistake in taking of the medicine before the trip to West Africa (2012). Since the consequences was very hard for my health, and I still feel them, this story is worth being told. As the saying is - if all the medicine in the world were thrown into the sea, it would be bad for the fish and good for humanity.
The organizer of the project живая-параллель.рф - professor Andrey Teslinov and the scientific adviser of the expedition-2012 - the famous Russian Africanist, the author of many scientific publications and articles - professor Dmitry Bondarenko. In the course of the research a unique ethnographic material was obtained, we have witnessed an extremely rare cult activities, suc as these, for example: http://goo.gl/lTfg5O. The Central part of the Voodoo cult - is a real sacrifice, it can be seen here (not for the faint of heart): http://goo.gl/f3G4vo.
As one can tell after watching those video materials, a life and customs in Benin, Ghana and Togo are very different in cultural aspect, which we planned to explore, as well as in everyday, sanitary-and-hygienic and parasitogenic aspect, from the ones, which are usual for Europeans (and for the residents of Central Russia, which are not Europeans for sure).
Two weeks before the expedition all members received an e-mail with the recommendations to take medicines Malarone and Mefloquine, damn them, during the whole trip. One of these medicines one needs to take each week, the other one medicine - each day. I bought both and started taking them according to the prescription from the letter, thinking that this recommendation was from the organisers, and they got it from competent Dmitry Bondarenko, who knows the African specificity. That my suggestion was disastrous.
As it turned out later, this letter-instruction was given to one of the expedition members at the hospital, where she did a vaccination. She sent it to the organisers, and they sent it to the other members, without checking. When Bondarenko and Sergey Goltsov - the doctor of the expedition - got it and read it, they immediately called it off - through the Facebook group - as a really harmful one: Malarone and Mefloquine are the heaviest poisons, and taking them in the preventive purposes was the practice of 70-es of the last century. All the members of the group on Facebook took it into consideration. All, except me - the one who doesn't even have an account on Facebook...
To cut a long story short, I missed this recommendation. I arrived to Sheremetyevo 4 hours before the flight, ordered a bottle of dry wine, had lunch. I took Portuguese port wine on board - the flight was long: to Cotonou via Paris and Casablanca. I met my colleagues, drank port wine. At the time of landing in Casablanca I felt, that something was wrong: I was shaking badly, as after the heaviest hangover, I began to swoon, didn't understand anything, but felt, that this reaction on alcohol wasn't standard. I became delirious... It was very bad. I stopped drinking alcohol. By the time of arrival to Benin I more or less had come to the senses, but not completely though. And I didn't stop taking those medicines - I didn't recognize yet, that they were the reason.
After two days in Benin I got problems with stool - it was liquid. And the medicines against it, like Imodium, which I had been taking, didn't help. I felt from bad to worse and didn't understand what was the problem. After I took the second medicine (which one needs to take each week) I began to suspect, that the problem was in these medicines, which I had been taking. I waited until doctor Goltsov woke up and asked him about all this and he was like: 'Are you crazy? Didn't you read what was written on Facebook?' For ten days of taking of these medicines I completely destroyed Gut flora and made a disorder in the immune system. I still feel the consequences of it, though 3 years has passed: my organism began to switch very quickly from slight illness of the throat to the upper air passages diseases, it does not respond to antibiotics, as it did before. Malarone and Mefloquine didn't pass without leaving a trace...
Therefore I tend to have a distrustful attitude to taking of little known medicine. And the trekking around Annapurna the same year (you can watch the video clip about it here: http://goo.gl/qyAY2h) with Sergey Gilevskiy confirms my suspicions. Sergey had been taking almost the same set of medicine products, which I've prepared for Everest, and the whole way had been suffering from flu, following which he ate not only his set of medicines but also all antibiotics from our shared first-aid set. It was a wonderful trekking with visiting Tilicho Lake. After Tilicho Lake we decided not to descend back to Manang, but to take the untrodden track to Yak Kharka. At the middle of this passage there is an amazing view on a confluence of two ravines, which is impossible to show in the photo:
From one hand, it's a pity, that it's not possible to show the full beauty via blog, from the other hand, there are so many visualization tools that one doesn't need to go trekking - everything is possible to see in Internet. It makes me sad - a quick transition from the time of great discoveries, when awareness level of explorers about the future was equal to zero, to the 100% level of awareness. Gilevsky spent a lot of time reading different reports about the trekkings around Annapurna, watching videos and photos, he knew the lodges with the best kitchen, where the best Momo and yak stakes are cooked, the lodges with different stories - it was a pure pleasure to trek with him, because I hadn't been preparing at all - trekking is trekking - everything was a novelty and everything brought the joy of a discoverer.
It's not quite clear, what joy will experience an explorer with the too high awareness level. Wise and experienced Igor Pokhvalin in his letter to me has written: 'In short, you just need to experience it yourself. An experience of Everest doesn't differ from the experience of seducing of a beautiful woman'.
Seducing - what a good comparison. Let us imagine, that you are going to go to a restaurant with all possible consequences with a beautiful young woman. In order to prepare yourself to this adventure you go to the Internet, read five reports about the dinners (with her) from the previous candidates, watch 2-3 videos (about the successful dinners, no one will upload the video about the failed ones). Read about the factors, which have helped to achieve success, then you analyze the video about how she gets undressed, what body she has, how she behaves in bed... It is unlikely that after such preparation a seducing will give a real, true pleasure. Uncertainty, mystery - that is what
attracts us, that is what give a joy of being discoverer.
Nevertheless, reports are read and movies are watched, uncertainty and suspense decrease, it seems like the chances for succes rise... But at the same time fears appear, doubts arise, 'Will I be able to?' and everything is like of Shakespeare's:
attracts us, that is what give a joy of being discoverer.
Nevertheless, reports are read and movies are watched, uncertainty and suspense decrease, it seems like the chances for succes rise... But at the same time fears appear, doubts arise, 'Will I be able to?' and everything is like of Shakespeare's:
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.
(Hamlet, W. Shakespeare)
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