Dickey: Reaching the Summit of Kilimanjaro

See, realizing that I have to pitch to every lineup other than the Mets’ would increase my misery.

We had been briefed at our 5 o’clock dinner that night that we were leaving for our summit attempt at 10:30 p.m. sharp… Five hours into the climb, aside from having extremely cold hands, we were all feeling pretty good… Another hour passed and it seemed as if the climbing got significantly more arduous. We had passed a half-dozen people who had to stop and turn back because of fatigue or altitude sickness. The extreme gradient of the slope partnered with the duration of the ascension to form a tag team that was kicking my butt.

I thought of my family back home playing games, and what the kids were doing in school. I began to think of the money we were raising to help the Bombay Teen Challenge. I visualized pitching to the all the teams in the N.L. East, batter by batter. I thought of anything I could to distract me from the misery I was in. Finally, about seven hours into the climb at around 18,500 feet, I had to ask our guide to stop. I sat on a rock to the side of the trail feeling nauseated and lightheaded.

Joshua, our guide, rushed over to me and filled a small cup with hot tea from a thermos he pulled out of his pack and placed in front of my face. The lightheadedness graduated to dizziness as I reached for the cup, missing it by six inches. Again I reached for it, only to miss it again. I felt my innards convulse. Joshua took my hand and placed it on the cup.

I told him to get me a Diamox that I had in the top pocket of my pack. He gave it to me and I immediately chewed it, hoping the medicine would enter my bloodstream more rapidly. I took a sip of the tea and sat there in silence, praying that my symptoms would abate.

After a couple of minutes, the fogginess lifted and the nausea subsided… I felt a second wind, and we pushed on slowly. Minutes later, we arrived at Stella. We were at 18,800 feet. There were climbers all around who had collapsed from fatigue or were experiencing severe symptoms of altitude sickness. Dave Racaniello, a member of our party, also began to feel poorly.

Joshua talked to him, and decided it was best to give him a hit of oxygen. That allayed his symptoms, and we continued to Uhuru Peak. After another 550 feet of gentle climbing, we reached the summit just as the glow from the sun was trying to make its way over the eastern part of the mountain.