New audio update from TA on Everest.

This is the text of TA’s audio message:

This update is being brought to you by Applecore Interactive.

Hi this is TA calling in from Everest base camp.  Happy Mother s Day to all you mothers out there, and to my mother in particular, hopefully I will catch you on the SAT phone a little later today.  After one of the longest, most horrible nights of my life, where it felt like my head had been placed in a vice, I had just a massive, massive headache last night, but I have had a pretty nice day.  At about 8 the pain eased off, I was able to pick up my head and through the day it eased more, so I spent the day resting and fussing.  One of the things I like to do is fuss with my gear, so I made a new safety line for my harness, and packed my food for when I finally go up the mountain, and just this and that, a few little things that needed attending like reorganizing the tent.  So it has been a good day to just catch up with myself and get some rest.  I did manage to hold down my massive dose of antibiotics maybe that gave me the headache, maybe it was dehydration, who knows, but I’m really glad that it is gone.  John Furno came over for a visit this afternoon, he is the second Newfoundlander to climb Mount Everest, I forgot to mention the other day that I passed Al Hancock, he was up at camp 2 just coming down from his rotation, he was the first Newfoundlander to summit Everest.  Also, yesterday in the ice fall I passed Megan McGrath, out of Ontario, she is having an amazing year, she become the first Canadian to ski unsupported to the South Pole and now she is climbing Lhotse and then heading off to K2.  She is a real inspiration to me, I had seen her and met her in 2007, but it was good to see her again in the ice fall.  Around here we are attending to tent platforms, watching the weather, the winds are up for at least the next couple of days so most teams are down here in base camp waiting for the next chance to go up.  Also we are all trying to eat, at this point food seems to be losing its appeal, one of my teammates that had to head home, reported back that he lost 33 pounds up here, so it is very important that we keep eating.  I’m eating a little packet of tuna everyday for my protein, and just trying to stomach/force it down because I can already tell that my legs have gotten smaller in diameter and my waist is smaller, and body weight is a friend up high.  So I am doing my best to wait and eat, wait and eat, listening to the ipod and looking forward to the new group of trekkers arriving.  Leslie, Dan, Nadia, and Marian are all heading this way and I hope to maybe meet them down in Lobouche in a couple of days and walk them up here.  That’s the news form Everest base camp on this Mothers Day, hope you are celebrating with the mothers in your life, take care, bye.

TA