ICU Nurse’s Everest Trek Becomes a Final Journey for Her Patient
- Boryana Peeva, an ICU nurse from Virginia, traveled to Nepal to climb to Everest Base Camp, a goal she spent months training for.
- Before her trek, Peeva cared for Laxmi Lama, a grandmother from Nepal, and her family had an unusual request after her passing.
- Peeva placed a piece of fabric from her pillowcase at the camp and honored her with a prayer.
When ICU nurse and mountaineering enthusiast Boryana Peeva boarded a flight for Nepal in October 2025, she believed she was chasing a lifelong dream: trekking to Mount Everest Base Camp. Instead, her trip became a final homecoming for a patient she had met only hours before her death during a shift.
Peeva, an Intensive Care Unit nurse at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center in Woodbridge, Virginia, had spent months training for the expedition, rebuilding strength after a serious leg injury two years earlier. She kept her goal mostly private, intent on staying focused. “If I say something to myself, I will achieve it,” she said.
Everest Base Camp sits at more than 5,300 meters (17,500 feet) and receives thousands of visitors each year during climbing season. Most climbers do not reach the summit, but due to the influx of visitors, a seasonal hub has been set up for trekkers at Base Camp with Wi‑Fi, cafés, and support services.
The day before her departure, she had an ICU shift and was assigned to care for a patient in the final stages of life: Laxmi Lama, a grandmother surrounded by her family. After Lama’s passing, Peeva learned from her family that the patient was from Nepal originally.
Source: Laxmi Lama
Peeva told the family she would be traveling to Nepal the very next day. Family members spoke about the mountains they regard as sacred, places where earth and spirit meet. In the quiet space of grief, a connection formed.
An Unusual Request
The family cut a strip of fabric from the pillowcase that had cradled Laxmi’s head, inscribing messages of love and remembrance in Nepali. They asked Peeva to carry the cloth to Everest and leave it there—symbolically bringing their grandmother home.
Peeva agreed immediately.
Days later, on the trail to Everest Base Camp, the physical toll was relentless. Thin air, freezing temperatures, and unforgiving terrain tested her endurance and resolve. There were moments, she admits, when she worried she might not climb high enough to keep her promise.
At roughly 4,700 meters, she and her Nepalese guide reached a place where climbers and trekkers had left flags, prayer scarves, and tokens in memory of loved ones. There, surrounded by rock, snow, and wind, the guide offered prayers in Nepali. Peeva placed the strip of fabric among the other memorials, the handwriting from Laxmi’s family now part of a larger tapestry of remembrance. The guide told her that Laxmi’s spirit was being brought home, that her soul could rest among the sacred peaks.
Honoring a Last Request
After returning to Virginia, Peeva shared photos and video of the moment with Laxmi’s family. A few days later, she received a message from Laxmi’s granddaughter.
“Ms. Boryana, thank you so much for taking her home with you so she didn’t have to make this journey alone. We will always be grateful,” she wrote.
At the funeral, the family retold the story of the nurse who carried their grandmother’s spirit back to Nepal.
For Peeva, the experience reinforced what she believes about both nursing and life—that sometimes the role of a caregiver extends far beyond the hospital walls. She says she was meant to be assigned to that room, meant to meet that family, meant to shoulder a small piece of their grief and carry it to the Himalayas.
What began as a private athletic milestone ended as an act of quiet, profound compassion: an ICU nurse reaching Everest and, in doing so, helping one family feel that their loved one had finally made it home.
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