Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro

With the world shutting down, we’re reaching into our archives and pulling a few of our favourite tales from the SwimSwam print version to share on-line. For those who’d prefer to learn extra of this type of story, you can subscribe to get a print (and digital) version of SwimSwam Magazine here. This story was initially printed within the 2018 12 months In Overview version of SwimSwam Journal.

Anybody who swims is aware of simply how a lot you study pushing your psychological and bodily limits.

So when College of Nebraska alumna Hayley Martin had the chance to not solely donate a kidney, however climb Mount Kilimanjaro simply weeks later, she was decided to take action.

“Quite a lot of the medical doctors have been actually skeptical,” Martin mentioned. “I’ve an individual referred to as an ‘advocate’ — each the donor and the recipient have one. If at any time I made a decision I didn’t wish to do it, it’s her job to inform the recipient that I wouldn’t be giving her my kidney, and he or she doesn’t have to inform her any cause why or something like that.”

However there was by no means any want. Martin, now 28, made good on a suggestion she first proposed offhand to a household pal as a youngster.

“In March of this yr, I bought a textual content from my mother asking me what my blood kind was, and I sort of immediately knew it was concerning the kidney,” Martin defined. “And I mentioned, ‘When does she want it?’

“Only one factor led to a different, and it turned out that I used to be a match for her.”

Initially, Martin was requested to donate in July, however that might have made the deliberate September climb not possible. So she requested to maneuver it up.

“They mainly mentioned, ‘Positive, are you able to do it subsequent Friday?’” Martin mentioned.

The surgical procedure went easily, with Martin’s half taking about an hour and a half and the recipient’s 2 half of. She was out of the hospital by 5 p.m. a day later, and avoid wasting hostile post-anesthesia unwanted effects, she recovered simply and with out taking any painkillers.

Her consideration shifted to the upcoming climb.

“They advised me that I would want to take a number of weeks off after the surgical procedure, and I bought cleared for normal health about eight half of weeks after the surgical procedure, which solely gave me about 2 half of weeks to coach up again up,” Martin mentioned. “So I used to be strolling my canine loads and making an attempt to go for little runs round city.”

Provided that Martin was residing within the Florida Keys on the time, there was little climbing preparation she might have performed pre-surgery. So to keep up her cardiovascular health, Martin swam Masters and used a stair stepper on the gymnasium.

The climb itself was like nothing she had performed earlier than. Over eight days — six going up and two down — Martin developed ache in her hip flexors, slightly below her donation scar, and repeatedly requested to return down as she, her brother, and her dad neared the summit with their information.

“The six days up you solely get to about 14,000 ft,” Martin mentioned, including that climbers want time to acclimate to the altitude. “After which the final day is that this big line of individuals simply strolling straight to the highest. We awakened at 9:30 at night time after which began climbing at about 10:30. We bought to the summit at 6:48 a.m., and on that final day I attempted a number of instances to stop. I stored saying that I couldn’t do it.”

As if that weren’t difficult sufficient, the stretch from the ultimate checkpoint (Stella Level) to the summit is lined with protruding spears of ice.

“There are elements the place it’s so slender it’s important to raise your leg all the best way up and over in entrance of the opposite and put one foot proper in entrance of the opposite, and it’s important to choose your ft up above the spikes of ice,” Martin mentioned. “It was the toughest factor I’ve ever performed. I’d a lot slightly do, like, 10x300s greatest common or any of those units I did in school that I believed have been the worst.”

She added: “I’d do any of these in a heartbeat over making an attempt to climb that mountain once more.”

Because the group crawled — typically actually — nearer to the highest, Martin begged her information to let he cease, however he didn’t oblige.

“He all of a sudden forgot the way to converse English and simply stored telling me, ‘I don’t know what you’re saying,’ and, ‘No, no, preserve going, preserve going,” she mentioned jokingly. “And it was like, ‘No, no, no, I wish to return down.’ And he simply stored going. So I simply stored following.”

And they also made it. However don’t ask her to color a psychological image.

“After we bought to the highest, the air is basically skinny, so none of us actually bear in mind it that nicely. However I bear in mind being there, and all of us sat down. We have been making an attempt to take deep breaths and breathe, and everyone sort of began to cry, and seems that that’s only a actually pure response to low oxygen ranges,” she mentioned. “We have been all crying, and no person knew what for.”

However what impressed them to go within the first place?

“We really deliberate this entire journey for my dad as a result of he wished to climb Mount Kilimanjaro earlier than he turned 65,” Martin mentioned. “Initially, this was sort of an ‘previous man climb factor’ and simply because from March to June issues for me transfer so shortly, we determined to show into extra ‘selling residing donors,’ as a result of there’s lots of misconceptions both about donating your kidney — like you’ll be able to’t drink afterward, you’ll be able to’t eat sweet, that your weight loss program utterly adjustments.”

For Martin, that’s been removed from the reality. Regardless of folks warning her that she was too younger to “destroy” her life, she made an knowledgeable resolution and urged others to take action as nicely.

“Simply the whole lot that I’ve learn, the whole lot that my medical doctors have advised me, was: ‘Your life’s not going to vary hardly in any respect,’” she mentioned. “You’ve bought to watch out about going out and getting actually, actually drunk. However , apart from doing issues that you must already be doing on the age of 28 — taking nutritional vitamins and possibly not getting that drunk — your life doesn’t change in any respect.”

The previous Nebraska record-holder’s swimming capacity stays unchanged post-surgery.

“Now I’m again swimming once more, swimming the identical instances as I used to be earlier than the surgical procedure,” Martin mentioned. “They’re nothing just like the instances I swam in school, however I’m nonetheless doing the identical as I used to be earlier than the surgical procedure.”

Martin desires fellow swimmers — and others — to affix her in ending the stigma of kidney donation.

“This entire Kilimanjaro factor simply sort of labored out, however there’s issues that folks can do of their on a regular basis lives to point out folks that it’s not the tip of the world that you simply donated a kidney,” Martin mentioned.

“In truth,” she mentioned, “it’s just about the start of the world for any person.”