damonjustisntfunny.com

A year prior Ben and I had taken our first real trip together. It was our honeymoon after fourteen years of dedicated Heterosexual Life Partnership. We flew to Las Vegas, rented a car, drove six hours, camped at the rim of the Grand Canyon, hiked down into the back-country, spent two nights inside, hiked out, drove six hours back to Las Vegas, and flew home.

On paper this all looked very good and in the end it was all very good but during the interim we encountered a few problems. Or, I should say that I encountered a few problems. Sure: we had lists; we had food; we had plans and expectations; we had high hopes; we were newly weds. However: we also had devised an outline of activities that most people thought was unreasonable. Here is why:

In order to do back-country camping in the Grand Canyon one must apply for a permit in advance (or get lucky the day of by applying in person; however, we were not prepared to risk such luck on all the flying and rental cars and whatnot). So Ben applied for the permit and got us camp spots. When we checked in at the South Rim Ranger Station after all the planning had already happened, the gentleman behind the counter raised some concern about our itinerary. This bit of information was related to me, in an offhand manner, by Ben — so I imagine that, in fact, the ranger had practically begged us not go and had attempted to restrain Ben with the brim of his ranger hat. Ben, in reporting to me, had toned it down for the sake of us actually going hiking.

Yet, hindsight is always clearer. Here was our hiking itinerary for our three days in and out of the Grand Canyon.

DAY ONE: Hike eight miles down 2,500 vertical feet. (Fine)

DAY TWO: Hike five miles down another 500 vertical feet. (Also Fine)

DAY THREE: Hike seventeen miles up 3,000 vertical feet. (Silence)

Ketosis: a condition characterized by a high number of ketones in the blood stream usually associated with a fat metabolism that is too high or diabetes.

Ketones: some kind of something that isn’t really all that good for you in high quantities, especially in the bloodstream.

Damon & Ben: people who had never heard of any of these things before walking over the rim of the Grand Canyon.

Apparently one of the other characteristics of a person suffering from ketosis is loss of appetite. I can attest to that. Three days of hiking and I ate only two full meals and a couple of snacks — and one of them was crappy and I didn’t finish it.

The best explanation the doctor in the Emergency Room at the Clinic on the rim of the Grand Canyon could give when asked the question: “Why did this happen to Damon?” was:

“I’m not really sure. Sometimes it just happens.”

What happened was this:

Day one, we hiked into the Grand Canyon. On our first break we took out some snack food and cracked open our hard-boiled eggs to find them undercooked (eggs! ah! they haunted us even then!). We threw them off the edge of the cliff in disgust, watching them break apart above the canyon as they fell on unsuspecting mutant chipmunks. We then ate some other snack food items and realized that our trail mix and thirty-six chocolate energy bars had all fused together into an enormous fourteen-pound wad of death under the heat of the Tuscan Sun. We then hiked the remaining distance to our campsite. We then made couscous (couscous! ah! never again!) with a spicy sauce that Ben had provided — and had been doing nothing but talk about during the entire preparatory phases of our trip — and I was nauseated and ate very little.

It may have been the heat; it might have been the hiking; it may have been the undercooked eggs; it might have been the couscous; it may have been anything. But the fact of that matter was that, at that moment, my body was no longer in homeostasis. Things were out of whack. Chemicals were in the blood that shouldn’t have been and what should have been was no where to be found. I was ill. And, because I have been ill before, I chose not to eat so that, in the near future, I wouldn’t be throwing up in the river. I don’t like vomiting. I wanted to avoid it at all costs.

While this “avoid eating things that make us sick” logic seemed wise, at the time — it turned out to be my downfall. That was what the doctor explained to me, at least, in the clinic. Apparently, it is not good to both fast and hike twenty-nine miles with sixty pounds of gear in the ninety degree heat up and down a total of 6,000 vertical feet.

We got up the next morning, we ate a little, we limped a little, and then we hiked for, perhaps, two hours until we arrived at the Colorado River. Then we lay in the shade on the beach and applauded our good fortune — it was beautiful. And even in my semi-nauseas state I could appreciate the beauty. I moaned a little about not feeling well, I ate a single meal of Mac and Cheese, we played some cards, then went to bed.

The next morning, we woke up at four o’clock. Not because we wanted to or because the sun was rising in the east and we were inspired to get a fresh start on a new day. Not because we wanted to see the fish jump in the river and the goats climb down the rocky cliffs. No. We got up because we had to pack camp and start hiking in order to feasibly arrive at the top of the rim before sundown. After I ran from the campsite and unleashed a diarrhea storm so potent I hear they have yet to reopen that part of the riverbank we were on our way. By noon we had gone fourteen miles and I hadn’t eaten anything. I couldn’t bring myself to look at food. The sound of Ben munching merrily on packets of dry oatmeal made my teeth shiver and grow hair. The very thought of eating made me want to throw up. By then (and only by then) did I accept that I wasn’t really feeling all that well. I had been drinking gallons upon gallons of water but feared I may have somehow become dehydrated. Ben drank when I did and as much as I did and he pissed like a river. I couldn’t remember when I peed last; probably somewhere in Las Vegas. And the word “dehydrated” was the only lexical item that Ben and I had in our limited vocabularies (he wasn’t a medical student just yet) to associate with any kind of illness on this trip. We had heard that word thrown around since we started planning it; other mothers warned us; our grocery clerks warned us; camels warned us. Don’t get dehydrated! Drink lots of water! Take your electrolytes! Drink lots of water! Don’t get dehydrated!

Well listen here: I drank lots of water and I drank a boat load of electrolyte mix and it didn’t help me one bit.

When we made it to that place in the Grand Canyon where there is still wheelchair access, escalators, and a movie theatre — that place where every living human takes themselves to hike about — we sat down for a good hour in the shade and still I couldn’t eat. But the worst was yet to come. The worst was the 3,000 foot vertical and, after twelve miles, we had only successfully hiked up maybe 800 feet of it.

Somewhere along those remaining five miles and 2,000 vertical feet my entire body fell apart. It is difficult to describe and harder still for me even to remember. I suspect that valuable real estate in my brain was sold at auction pricing to my metabolism and it is just as well. I struggled to take each step. At the time, I couldn’t understand what was happening. I would lose my balance and my eyes would go out of focus and I would teeter from side to side. I saw people riding on mules up and down the trails around me and I wanted to push them to their certain doom (Ben later told me that there actually were mules and people). It was awful. But I made it to the top even though I thought I wouldn’t and even though Ben thought I wouldn’t. Ben doesn’t normally worry about anything or anyone — least of all me. His response is always “it will be fine; it will be fun” and even he was beginning to look at me with a grim downturned gaze and saying things like “you don’t look that good. You need to take a break? Drink some water.”

At the top, I sat down next to a bunch of Japanese tourists and began dry heaving. Ben went to get the car and when, after an hour, I still couldn’t drink without throwing up, I convinced myself I should go to the emergency clinic. We drove over and I went in and when I was told that they couldn’t just supply us with an IV kit and let me shoot up in the lobby, I went back to the campsite and tried to drink more water only to throw up again. I didn’t have health insurance and I was certain it would cost a lot to be admitted to the Emergency Room but, eventually, I succumbed and back to the clinic I went and I told them what had happened and they dropped everything they were doing and rushed me into a room with enough technology to remove mules from people’s abdomens and stuck an IV in me and began monitoring my life signals very carefully. My heart rate wouldn’t come down from 120; my blood pressure was not becoming of a vegetarian.

That was when I learned about ketosis. That was when I learned about the effects of starvation. That was when I learned why the Atkins diet is so effective at causing weight loss: when there are no carbohydrates (necessary to the production of energy) the body converts available fat stores into energy (hence the ketones); when there are no stores of fat, however, the body starts licking its lips and looking elsewhere. Muscle tends to be its first choice. And for the record, and for those of you who haven’t seen the documentary: I have no fat on my body. None. Whatsoever. So my body made do with what it did have. It is a rather resilient little creature, this body of mine, and won’t take death sitting down.

In my Treatise on Irony, the penultimate item that will forever be laughed at and held nearly above all the rest is that while I starved, Ben and I packed in and out of the Grand

Canyon enough food to feed a party of eight for twelve days. And, what is more, I wasn’t dehydrated.

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