At 20,000 Feet Jason's Adventure Became a Fight for Survival

Jason Borkland has never been someone who watches life from the sidelines. A father, PADI-certified Divemaster, award-winning underwater filmmaker, and passionate marine conservation advocate, he has spent years exploring the ocean and sharing its wonders with others. From diving with sharks to heliskiing and flying aerobatic aircraft, his adventures have always been about more than adrenaline. They are about discovery, connection, and making the most of life.

Then came his ambition to climb Island Peak in Nepal’s Everest region, a demanding ascent above 20,000 feet through glaciers, crevasses, and steep snow and ice.

The evening before the summit push, Jason became violently ill after eating garlic soup, leaving him severely dehydrated. But he pushed onward. He was accustomed to enduring extreme physical challenges.

The Fight for Survival Begins

At 1 a.m., Jason took the lead as the team began its summit push. Hours later, with the summit visible just a short distance away, he stopped for one last break. Then everything changed. He felt a severe crushing pain in his chest and began to feel disoriented.

As Jason described it to me, it became every person for themselves. The others continued on, and he felt he had been left to die. His expedition had become a fight for survival. He had to make his way back down on his own to base camp at approximately 14,000 feet, where he could be evacuated by helicopter.

He had developed high-altitude cerebral edema, or HACE. This life-threatening form of altitude illness causes the brain to swell in response to insufficient oxygen. As the swelling progresses, a person can become confused, lose coordination, and ultimately lose consciousness.

The crisis also involved severe muscle breakdown, known as rhabdomyolysis. Extreme exertion, compounded by severe dehydration and oxygen deprivation, can contribute to this condition. Damaged muscles release myoglobin, a protein that can injure the kidneys as they filter it from the bloodstream. Dehydration further increases that risk by reducing blood flow to the kidneys. The emergency on the mountain would leave kidney consequences long after Jason returned home.

After a 14-hour hike back to base camp, Jason was medically evacuated by helicopter to a hospital in Nepal. Then, a massive 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck that night.

Physicians suddenly faced an overwhelming influx of injured people. Jason recalls being shown how to administer his own IV treatments while the medical team attended to earthquake victims. Even in a hospital, survival required extraordinary resilience.

Jason recovered from HACE. His kidneys did not fully recover.

Over time, he developed chronic kidney disease, or CKD, reaching stage 3b and approaching stage 4. Further progression could bring the possibility of dialysis or a kidney transplant into his future.

How Common is Kidney Disease?

Jason’s path to kidney disease was extraordinary, but the condition itself is far more common than many people realize. An estimated 37 million adults in the United States alone live with chronic kidney disease, and nearly nine in ten do not know they have it.

Early CKD often develops silently, allowing kidney function to decline while someone still feels well.

For many, it develops after years of diabetes or high blood pressure, which gradually damage the kidneys’ delicate filtering system. Others develop it from autoimmune diseases, inherited conditions, or lasting damage after a severe kidney injury like Jason’s. It can affect people of all ages, including those who have always led healthy, active lives.

When symptoms begin to appear, they can be easy to dismiss. Fatigue, swelling in the feet or ankles, foamy urine, or changes in urination may be among the first noticeable clues. These symptoms can also have other causes, and their absence does not mean the kidneys are healthy. Blood and urine testing can identify problems before symptoms develop.

Conventional medicine has no established cure for chronic kidney disease.

As kidney function declines, waste and excess fluid can accumulate, electrolyte balance can become disrupted, and the heart can face increasing strain. Different causes can lead to these same complications. The underlying cause still guides treatment, while the shared goals are to protect remaining kidney function, manage complications, and preserve quality of life.

That is why early detection matters. Blood testing measures creatinine and uses it to estimate glomerular filtration rate, or eGFR, showing how well the kidneys filter blood. Urea and blood urea nitrogen, or BUN, help assess waste buildup, while uric acid testing can identify elevations associated with gout and impaired kidney clearance. At Longevity Medical Institute, we include these blood markers as part of our comprehensive 140+ biomarker laboratory panel. A urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio, or uACR, adds important information by checking for protein leakage that may signal kidney damage even before filtering function declines. Together, these findings provide a more complete picture of kidney health.

Daily Life Becomes a Vicious Cycle

When kidneys cannot adequately remove excess salt and water, fluid accumulates. Jason described weight swings of 10 to 15 pounds or more in a day. As fluid built up, breathing became harder, blood pressure increased, causing further damage to the kidneys, and the burden on his cardiovascular system increased.

Lasix, a prescribed medication, helped remove excess fluid, but it brought another challenge. The medication can raise uric acid, while impaired kidneys also struggle to clear it. For Jason, gout became a source of severe pain in his feet, ankles, and knees.

Fluid retention. Shortness of breath. Medication. Gout. Pain.

For a man accustomed to exploring the world, simply getting through an ordinary day had become an exhausting undertaking.

Jason came to Longevity Medical Institute looking for hope and a plan. Returning to adventure felt beyond reach. His immediate goal was more personal. He wanted some normalcy back.

His longtime friend and diving partner, Thomas, joined him throughout the week, offering the kind of support that comes from years of shared adventures.

A Targeted Approach to Jason’s Kidney Treatment

Jason’s individualized, investigational protocol included a targeted injection of 10 billion exosomes into the renal cortex, the outer tissue of his left kidney. During the week, he also received intravenous stem cells and exosomes, peptides, nutraceutical support, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

A small human study explored stem cell-derived extracellular vesicles, which include exosomes, for chronic kidney disease using renal artery delivery.

Jason’s protocol used direct injection into the renal cortex, a different approach.

The renal cortex contains the glomeruli, which filter blood, and important portions of the kidney’s tubules. We chose exosomes over stem cells because their much smaller size might allow them to move more readily through the local tissue, with less potential to become trapped than larger cells.

The rationale for direct injection was to place exosomes close to injured tissue, potentially increasing local exposure to their biological signals with less reliance on delivery through the renal artery.

Why Infiltrate Only One Kidney?

Caution guided that decision. Given the uncertainty about the response to direct injection, our physician team chose to treat only the left kidney initially rather than expose both kidneys at once. The injection into the renal cortex was investigational, informed by encouraging findings from a preclinical study. Our medical team was not aware of any published human clinical trial or case report using this specific approach.

Would The Findings Be Worse, Unchanged, or Improved?

Honestly, we did not know what to expect. At the end of his treatment week, we repeated his laboratory tests and performed a follow-up ultrasound.

The results gave us a powerful reason for optimism.

His follow-up laboratory report showed urea, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), creatinine, serum electrolytes, and uric acid within the laboratory’s normal reference ranges. His urinalysis showed no casts or crystals. Previously, his urea, BUN, creatinine, and uric acid had all been outside the normal range, many significantly so. His estimated glomerular filtration rate, or eGFR, a measure of kidney filtering function, also improved markedly from his prior results, finishing only slightly below our laboratory’s normal reference range.

The ultrasound was encouraging as well. Swelling around the kidney seen on his initial examination was no longer apparent on the follow-up ultrasound.

During the final two days of his protocol, Jason reported urinating normally again, something he had not experienced in more than a year. The gout pain he had rated as 9 out of 10 on arrival was now barely noticeable.

For Jason, and for everyone supporting him, this was an extraordinary moment.

These early findings do not mean his chronic kidney disease has been cured or identify which part of the protocol contributed to the improvement. Repeat kidney function testing, urine testing, and continued follow-up will help determine whether the improvement persists.

The current plan is for him to return in three months for lab reassessment and, if clinically appropriate, a similar protocol targeting the right kidney.

But after years of living with the consequences of that mountain emergency, Jason had something meaningful to build on.

10 Days Later: Jason Shares His Progress  

Jason shared an encouraging video update about his recovery and the changes he has experienced since treatment.

One of the most significant improvements has been his fluid retention. Before treatment, Jason experienced dramatic daily weight fluctuations of up to 15 pounds as his body struggled to regulate fluid levels. Since treatment, he has lost 16 pounds, and his weight has stabilized, without the extreme fluctuations he previously experienced.

His blood pressure has also improved considerably. Previously reaching 160/110 prior to starting treatment, Jason reported a reading as low as 117/83 during his first 10 days following treatment.

He continues to feel better and is particularly encouraged by the improvements in his daily life.

Perhaps the most meaningful part of his update was hearing Jason describe how these changes are affecting his quality of life.

"Overall, life is getting back to normal, and I look forward to getting the right kidney done."

He also expressed his appreciation for the medical team and the individualized approach to his treatment.

"The treatment that y'all came up with really did change everything for me."

For someone who arrived struggling with advanced chronic kidney disease, significant fluid retention, elevated blood pressure, painful gout, and declining quality of life, these early changes are encouraging.

While it is too early to determine whether these improvements will be sustained or reflect lasting changes in kidney function, Jason's experience gives us reason to continue closely monitoring his progress.

The summit he once hoped to reach is today, much closer to home. Easier days. Greater freedom. A life less constrained by illness. And maybe one more dive with his friend Thomas.

For someone who has spent a lifetime seeking the next adventure, the possibility of getting his life back may be the most meaningful one yet.

If you or someone you love is living with chronic kidney disease or another serious nephrological condition, we invite you to schedule a free online consultation or reach out directly to Ivanna or Sheridan.