Let’s face it, the past two years have been pretty rubbish for most people. I am not unique in this, however, I would like to share with you my story, of how in the space of a few days my perspective on life changed. And how, in a sense, the planning to do the Hardangervidda på langs began.
From an unfortunate accident to two years of health problems
Before the pandemic, in the Autumn 2019, Calvin (my partner) and I had started to discuss doing more winter XC ski trips, and Hardangervidda på langs definitely caught our attention. We wanted to do it, but we still had a lot to learn and knew that it wouldn’t be until the following winter of 2021 that we would attempt it… Plenty of time to train and collect the necessary gear, should life not have thrown a spanner in the works.
On top of a global pandemic and all the difficulties associated with this, I have ventured from one health problem to another. Just one month after the first lockdown in Norway, I had a pretty unspectacular but high consequence fall whilst backcountry skiing. I broke my leg in two places (needing 5 screws and a metal rod to fix it), and had to be airlifted with the helicopter out of the mountain (read Calvin’s blog about the accident here).
A dramatic end to a wonderful day of skiing at Store Hollendaren, as I came to an abrupt stop when my ski ended up getting stuck under a block of ice (from avalanche debris) whilst traversing the beautiful slope on the top picture. I broke my lower leg in two places, a complex butterfly fracture to the tibia and a clean simple fracture to the fibula. It made my day to come home to lots of wonderful messages and plants from friends and family, thank you all for your support! And a special big thank you to Calvin, Pasha, the three nice strangers, and the UNN Helicopter rescue team for getting me off the mountain safely and taking good care of me.
Despite the severity of the break, it healed relatively quickly… but those screws really did start to screw things up! ‘Today’ = July 2021
A few months and a lot of patience later, I started to walk again, and then to bike. I pushed too much, too soon, and damaged the meniscus in my knee by falling off my bike when my leg didn’t have the strength to support me when I lost my balance going around a corner. I returned to square one, patiently training and exercising as much as I could to build up more strength and mobility. By early 2021, I was finally able to try skiing again, slowly but surely. It was quite an amazing feeling to just be out in the mountains again, and I was eager to just spend as much time as possible out there.
Ut på ski med Amicia (out skiing with Amicia), Snarbyeidet til Tromsdalen (36km). By February 2021, I was feeling a bit more confident with skiing and was able to go out on a lot of XC-ski trips with friends. However, this day out with Amicia was a particular favourite of the season. Amicia and I were only meant to ski part of this route, however, 15km into it we made the impulsive decision to continue pushing towards Tromsdalen… We were very unprepared for a long day out, with hardly any water or food, and definitely not enough clothes to keep us warm… especially as around 20-25km into the route the weather turned and we ended up with full white-out snowstorm conditions. It was a great adventure and only fueled my love for long XC ski trips! Photo: Amicia Lee.
As I began to get stronger and be more active, I noticed that the screws in my knee and ankle were causing a lot of inflammation in my joint ligaments, and the doctor referred me to have most of the screws removed. This would be a short and simple surgery that would help me become more mobile. Before I entered the surgery, I was told all about the potential side effects of having surgery and in all honesty, I didn’t really think about them - I was just excited to be able to start training properly again without so much discomfort and pain. All I could think was that it wouldn’t be long until I could join longer climbing trips, run farther without pain, and be able to start thinking about longer expeditions, such as Hardangervidda på langs. Just a few hours after the surgery and I was able to walk out of the hospital, and within 10 days I was able to start slowly running again. It was liberating!
Calvin and I decided to go on an amazing week-long climbing trip to Lofoten the week before the surgery, for ‘just in case’ something went wrong during the surgery and the recovery took some time…
Finally, the leg debacle was nearly over… or so I thought…
A week and a half later, in early June 2021, I woke up to an extremely sharp pain in my chest and side. In just a few hours, I went from feeling fine to being unable to take deep breaths, to then being unable to talk without gasping for air between every word, unable to laugh (and trust me, I love to laugh) or lie down, and feeling like a hollow shell of who I was just a few hours prior. I kept thinking that surely the pain would pass soon, wouldn’t it? Perhaps I am just overreacting? Hours passed with no progress, I just kept feeling worse and worse. That evening I decided to go to A&E as I was almost unable to breathe and continued to have severe pain in my chest. I was told that it was probably just asthma and that I was too young for anything more serious, and that I should go home. Of course, I couldn’t sleep, it felt like someone was squeezing my lung from the inside, and with every gasp of air that I tried to take the hold just got tighter. Every time I tried to move or lie down, the grip squeezing my lungs just got stronger.
It was only almost 48 hours after the first visit to A&E that the doctors finally agreed that I should come in for further testing, and all mostly because I made a fuss saying that my symptoms all pointed towards a blood clot and pleurisy and that I was barely able to breathe without agonising pain. After 6 hours of testing, it turned out that I did in fact have a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lung) that had caused a lung infarction and pleural effusion of the lung lining. Essentially the blood clot had cut off the oxygen to that part of the lung and it was oxygen-starved and inflamed. Blood clots are a common side effect of the surgery I did. It took 3 weeks before I was able to breathe again without severe pain and in all honesty, it wasn’t until after my diagnosis and after the pain started to subside that the severity of this situation really hit home. I realised that for those three days of uncertainty before I was finally taken seriously by the doctors, I had been holding in a lot of tension and that I had been truly unsure if I would wake up again if I fell asleep. It was scary. And I definitely was not overreacting.
Once I knew what was wrong I was able to ‘relax’ a bit as I knew that the doctors would now take care of me, and for the next 3 months, I did an array of tests and had to take blood thinners. During this time there was a lot of uncertainty about my future, would I be able to ever stop taking blood thinners, do I have a genetic predisposition to blood clotting, if so this would probably affect my ability to have children and also mean that I might actually never be allowed to join research cruises again, AND I would have to take extra precautions when doing trips and expeditions. Essentially, I felt that I had to reconsider a lot of things in my life - do I need to change career if I can’t go on research cruises? Do I even want children? If I do, can I even have them? What if I can no longer safely do expeditions? and what if I just become a liability to my climbing, hiking, skiing partners? It was overwhelming, and these months were extremely difficult on my mind. There were too many uncertainties, too many questions, and really just too few answers.
Thankfully I had (and still have of course) a great support network around me, who helped me to stay positive and focus on the good things in life. I began to take dedicated walks every single day, improving a little every week with my breathing. By July, I felt able to go on slow and easy runs, and then start hiking and bringing in some elevation. This training kept me motivated, and by doing a lot of low-intensity work, I ended up building quite a strong base again, which meant that by the end of August, I was able to go on longer climbing trips, glacier hikes, and even do a slow but steady 41 km trail run with Calvin. I felt stronger, but I knew that I had to continue working every day to build up my strength back to normal and I hoped that all my doubts would not come true when I finally had my 3-month control appointment in September.
When September came, the hematologist overseeing my case shared with me some good news: I did not have to continue taking the blood thinners as my blood no longer showed signs of a blood clot AND they were also unable to identify whether I had a predisposition for blood clotting. However, they wanted to continue to monitor me as my blood tests now showed signs of potential liver damage, a common side effect of the blood thinners I was taking. It took almost 2 more months before I was told that I could be officially ‘discharged’ and that I was back to ‘health’. I was also finally allowed to have a fit-to-sail medical certificate once again. The relief was immense, as the weight that I had been feeling for 5 months was lifted.
Low-intensity exercise (daily walks and yoga) became a huge part of my training for weeks after the pulmonary embolism. I took this selfie in early July when I had just managed to finally hike up a small mountain without any breathing issues, and I felt so happy to be out there with the sun and the views over Tromsø!
Reflecting on these two years and moving forward
Reflecting on my two years of health challenges, and in particular my experience with a pulmonary embolism, I realised that the biggest thing that kept me feeling motivated and positive, besides my wonderful friends, family, and colleagues, was spending time in nature, dreaming up new adventures, staying focused on my training, and having goals to work towards.
This experience changed my perspective on what is important in my life. I realised that life is too short to waste it worrying about small things, whether it’s the right time to try something new, or if you are fit enough, or how others might respond to your choices. This experience made me understand that I felt a strong intrinsic motivation to unapologetically live my life to its fullest and not be afraid to dream big. I also learnt that if something in your body doesn’t feel right, check it out and don’t give up with trying to find the answers.
Hardangervidda is back on the agenda
In just one week from now, Calvin and I will embark on the Hardangervidda på langs expedition, and after months of planning and training, we are ready to go. We will start in Finse, Norway’s highest train station, and ski south covering around 120 km over 6 days to our end destination Haukeliseter. We will go unsupported and plan to camp instead of using the huts along the route, carrying everything that we need from the start. I think that this expedition will, without a doubt, be a challenge, but I look forward to it, to finally go on a new adventure and to see how my mind and body will respond to this style of multi-day winter expedition, something that I hope to do more of in the future.
I hope to use these blogs to not only document the preparation and then the expedition, but to also hopefully inspire others to not be afraid to step outside of their comfort zone and to follow their dreams/ambitions/goals, even if sometimes it feels like everything is going against you.
And with that, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my first blog. I am deeply grateful for that :-)
Stay tuned for more, and thank you again :-)
Mariana xx
***UPDATE: Tuesday 29th March***
Life threw us another curveball
Late on Saturday evening, I published this blog with the intention to share it on social media on Sunday after a short snowshoe trip with a friend. However, whilst I was out, I received the call that anyone who has friends and family who go backcountry skiing/riding dreads: ‘Mariana, call mountain rescue, there has been an avalanche. I am out of the snow but I need to search for the others’ - my heart sank and my blood grew cold. Fuck! I quickly called mountain rescue and explained what happened and shared the coordinates of the location of Calvin and the other four people he was with, and drove to the location of the accident, where I met with the police, paramedics, and the mountain rescue.
After the initial call, I couldn’t get hold of Calvin on the phone and it was agonising not knowing the status of the situation and if he and the others were OK, as I stood at the base of the mountain looking up at this huge and narrow inhospitable looking couloir. I just kept thinking that it was positive that I could see people and that they were moving. The ground and air rescue team did an excellent job and also managed to keep me informed throughout the rescue, as I stood watching helplessly. Long story short, they were all found alive but with injuries of varying degrees, before being transported and taken care of by the mountain rescue team and the UNN hospital medical staff.
While Calvin did not break any bones and is now home, he is very banged up after being pushed through a narrow tumble dryer of snow 600m down the mountain.
And just like that our dream of doing Hardangervidda på langs next week is now (temporarily) over and postponed. I am unsure when we will be able to do it, perhaps next year. But in reality none of that matters at the moment. Right now, the most important thing is that Calvin and the others recover well from this traumatic accident.
Please stay safe out there, support and take care of each other, and always remember to tell someone where you are going when venturing out into the mountains.
Mariana xx