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The Badger Herald

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The Badger Herald

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Wisconsin nurse takes on Mount Everest to promote hospice care awareness

Everest climber said he reached a new peak of understanding place in the universe
Wisconsin+nurse+takes+on+Mount+Everest+to+promote+hospice+care+awareness
Courtesy of Andrew Land

Andrew Land had only three words in his mind as he faced Mount Everest’s steep, slippery slopes.

“Make something happen.”

Standing at 29,029 feet tall, only a couple hundred Americans have reached Mount Everest’s summit. But Wisconsinite Andrew Land wasn’t just hoping to summit the mountain — he also hoped to spread hope and understanding of hospice health care.

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Now the director of a hospice program in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Land became a hospice nurse in 2000. Since then, he has helped hundreds of people every year live the remainder of their days to the fullest extent with the least amount of pain possible.

Summits of Mount Everest
Photo courtesy of Andrew Land

Working with a variety of nurses, doctors and volunteers, Land has a team that specializes in treating both their patient’s and family’s physical and emotional pain, in order to help them transcend their suffering from their various terminal illnesses.

“Unlike the rest of health care, which is focused on staying alive at possible all costs, we are about helping you live as well as possible until you die,” Land said. “Most people that we are taking care of know they are going to die … [They] want some say over how those last several months are going to go.”

When he’s not helping his patients, Land has been climbing mountains. Land has found synergism in the pain and suffering he feels while climbing, and the pain his patients go through on a daily basis.

Land’s motivation to climb stemmed from his connection with his patients. The terror and fear he feels when climbing reminds him of how scared his patients and their families must feel for their loved ones. It creates a sense of centeredness — from which Land feels he has found his place in the universe.

Land said anything may happen in a moment that may alter a person’s life, whether it’s sickness or the slippery slope of a mountain’s side.

“Life is going to change,” Land said. “It’s not going to change the way you think it’s going to change, or when you think it’s going to change, or how you think it’s going to change. But it’s going to change.”

Land had contemplated climbing Everest in passing, but never seriously thought of attempting it until a Sherpa who Land met on a previous climbing trip hinted he should try.

Climbing up Everest
Photo courtesy of Andrew Land

Unlike his previous climbing trips, Land would truly be climbing for the hospice care cause. Officially sponsored by the Hospice Organization and Palliative Experts of Wisconsin and money Land’s terminally ill brother had given him, Land trained for a year with the determination to be the only climber who reached the summit of Mount Everest for hospice.

There were many moments where Land questioned his decision to climb Mount Everest, from the moment he left Wisconsin to the moment he first beheld the many prayer flags at the base camp of the mountain.

Though Land worried about how challenging and dangerous it would be to climb Everest, he cleared his mind of the uncertainty of the future, and focused instead on the present.

“The way to climb a big mountain is just like the way you get through a big marathon, or how my patients and families do,” Land said. “It’s one step at a time … don’t worry about tomorrow, or three weeks from now, or 12 miles, just think about now.”

Setting out on this physical and mental challenge, Land and his team set out from base camp and successfully crossed the most dangerous part of the climb, “Khumbu Icefall,” arriving at camp one.

Thinking they had survived through the most treacherous part of their journey, on April 25, 2014 a sudden earthquake shook them to reality. A man in Land’s tent from California identified the situation as an earthquake as avalanches formed all around them.

It wasn’t the classic moment of life flashing before his eyes, but Land said he and his climbing partner waited in a tense silence staring at each other, wondering if they would be buried alive.

As luck or fate would have it, the resulting avalanches did not make it to Land’s tent.

But those who remained back at base camp were not so fortunate. Sherpa radios alerted Land to the destruction and deaths at base camp.

The destruction of the avalanches
Photo courtesy of Andrew Land

From an expedition that had hoped to go up, Land and his group hoped to make their way back down. A few days after the earthquake, Land and his group were rescued by a helicopter.

When they had reached base camp, Land and his group helped neighboring villages that had been shaken by the devastation and loss the earthquake had caused.

Despite the destruction, Land found a new centeredness among the Sherpas and families in the villages, their generosity making the best of one of the worst situations.

Land befriended a young girl from one of the villages he stopped at.
Photo courtesy of Andrew Land

After Land’s return home, he has slowly reintegrated himself into his work while traveling and sharing his story.

Land wanted to use his success as a way to promote hospice. But now, Land realizes change and generosity are just as important, and as powerful.

“It all worked out way different than we thought it would be, but in some ways way more powerful than we thought it was going to be,” Land said.

Land is still discovering what this event means to him, and whether he will climb again. But Land said one thing is certain: This happened for a reason, and he now has to figure out why.

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