I'll say right now that this adventure wasn't my best idea. But the mountains were calling.
In about 48 hours, I drove from my home at 600ft elevation Chicago to Des Moines, Des Moines to Denver, and Denver to the 11,600ft parking lot at the Guanella Pass. If you're making assumptions about where this story goes, they're probably the right ones.
I mean to hike Mt. Bierstadt -- a 14-er, one of the 14,000ft+ elevation peaks in the Rocky Mountains -- and drove there from Denver around 10am on a partly cloudy summer Saturday. I took off down a trail after checking my batteries and snacks and satellite connection, and after about 15 minutes realized that I was headed to Square Top Mountain instead. That's fine; it's beautiful.
I realized I was laboring pretty hard after an hour, and checked my blood oxygen on my Apple Watch: 74%. If you aren't aware, that's "get emergency care now" low. I did some breathing exercises, checked again and was at 88%, and assumed the positive trend was okay and kept on my way for nearly another hour. Then I started getting a headache, then I started not losing my balance on a steeper pitch, but not leaping up like a gazelle either. So, I took this photo and turned around for lower altitudes.
By the time I got to Denver, I had one of the worst headaches of my life, was dehydrated but couldn't drink without throwing up, was hungry but couldn't eat, and was shaking uncontrollably. Eventually -- and after wasting two hours at the nearest open urgent care before learning they wouldn't take my insurance and therefore the only urgent care I would get from them was an urging to get care elsewhere, I love America -- I got a large steroid shot, IV fluids, and an hour of close monitoring from a great team at AFC before starting to feel better.
People, take altitude seriously and use the tools you have on hand to take care of yourself. I had every tool in the world to take care of myself, got the information I needed to do so, and still made a bit of a dumb choice. Live, laugh, love.