Northern Ireland Everest Expedition 2003
Dave and Richard got some frostbite

Richard and Dave were back down to ABC a couple of days after their summit attempt.
Naturally Temba made a cake (any excuse!).
We had dinner before getting the fingers treated by Dr Julian (a BIG thanks to him!)
Dave's fingers are at the very right edge of the picture.

There are various different treatment regimes, depending on whether you consult Russian doctors or western doctors.
Here they have soaked the affected bits in body-temperature water for around 40 minutes then Banjo is applying protective dressings.
Dave liked the Royal Navy doctor's recommendation that he drink alcohol 3 times a day.

Dave's left and right feet once down at ABC another couple of days later (25 May). The second toe on the left foot recovered completely.

Here is what happened to the other two:

28 August: sadly, I'm still in England - I had to have surgery to remove about two thirds of my left big toe, and about a fifth of the second toe on my right foot. I put off having the operation until after my best mates' wedding, by which time the big toe was on the way to amputating itself, so I had surgery on the 28th July.

Everything went OK, but in order to keep as much of the big toe as possible, the surgeon just took off the dead tissue, leaving an open wound, and this takes longer to heal than if he'd removed more, and then sewn a flap of skin across. The smaller toe is well on the way to recovery, but it's going to be a while before the big toe is in good enough shape for me to travel - at the moment, it needs dressing every two days, due to the fluid oozing out of it.

Looking on the bright side, when it has healed I won't have any problems walking, but at the moment I don't want to roll any weight onto that toe. Fortunately, cycling is OK, and the weather here is still excellent, so I'm gradually building my fitness up on the bike...